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THE 



Last Ninety Days of the War 



IN 



NOETH-OAEOLUnTA. 



BY 



CORNELIA PHILLIPS SPENCER. 



SECOND THOUSAND. 



:^ew-l^oiik J 




WATCHMAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 



1866. 






"I'Y 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 

CHARLES F. DEEMS, 

In the Cleric's OflSce of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 

District of New-York. 



fioN. p. L. Swain, ]-]— Pm 

r WHOSE SUGGESTION IT WAS UNDERTAKEN, AND BY WHOSE 
INVALUABLE ADVICE, ENCOURAGEMENT, AND ASSIST- 
ANCE IT HAS BEEN COMPLETED, THIS BOOK 
IS MOST RESPECTFULLY- 
DEDICATED. 



PEEFAOE. 



The papers on the Last Ninety Days of 'the War dj 
North-Carolina, which originally appeared in the New-York 
"Watchman, and are now presented in book form, were com- 
menced with no plan or intention of continuing them beyond 
two or three numbers. The unexpected favor with which 
they were received led to their extension, and finally resulted 
in their republication. 

To do justice to North-Carolina, and to place beyond cavil 
or reproach the attitude of her leaders at the close of the 
great Southern States Rights struggle — to present a faithful 
picture of the times, and a just judgment, whether writing 
of friend or foe, has been my sole object. Slight as these 
sketches are, they may claim at least the merit of truth, and 
this, I am persuaded, is no slight recommendation with tho 
truth-loving people of North-Carolina. 



COj^TENTS 



CHAPTER I. 
• PAaa 

Difficulties of the History— The Position of North-Carolina— The Peace Con- 
vention — The Montgomery Convention — Governor Yance — The Salis- 
bury Prison— Testimony on the Trial, . . . . .13 



CHAPTER II. 
Winter of 1864-'5— Letter of Governor Vance— Appeal for General Lee's 
Army— The Destitution of the People— Fall of Fort Fisher— Advance of 
■ General Sherman— Contrast between Sherman and Cornwallis— Ex- 
tracts from Lord Cornwallis's Order-book — The " Bloody Tarleton," . 26 

CHAPTER III. 
Judge Ruffin — His History — His Character — His Services — General Couch's 
Outrages after Peace had been declared — General Sherman's Outrages 
— His unblushing Official Report — " Army Correspondents" — Sherman 
in Fayetteville — Cornwallis in Fayetteville — Coincicences of Plans — 
Contrasts in Modes— The Negro Suffers— Troops Coacentrating under 
General Johnston, . . . . . . . .40 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

PAGB 

Laws of War — " Right to Forage older than History" — Xenophon — Kent on 
International Law — Halleck's Authority versus Sherman's Theory and 
Practice — President Woolsey — Letter of Bishop Atkinson, . .53 

CHAPTER V . 
Lord Cornwallis in Fayetteville— A young Lady's Interview with him— How 
he treated her— How Sherman's Men treated her Grandson—" The 
Story of the Great March"— Major Nichols and the " Quadroon Girls" — 
Such is NOT War— "Why these Things are recorded— Confederate Con- 
centration in North-Carolina— A Sad Story, . . . .65 



CHAPTER VI. 

"Shays's Rebellion"— Kent on Massachusetts— Conduct of a Northern Gov- 
ernment to Northern Rebels — The "Whisky Insurrection" — How 
Washington treated a Rebellion— Secession of New-England Birth— 
The War of 1812— Bancroft on 1676— The Baconists— An Appeal, . 76 

CHAPTER VII. 

Schofield's Army— Sherman's— Their Outrages— Union Sentiment— A Disap- 
pointment — Ninety-two Years Ago — Governor Graham — His Ancestry 
— ^His Career — Governor Manly, . . . . , ,94 

CHAPTER VIII 
Governor Graham opposes Secession — But goes witk his State — Is sent to the 
Confederate Senate — His Agency in the Hampton Roads Interview—' 
Remarkable and Interesting Letters from Governor Graham, written 
from Richmond in 1865, 109 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGB 

State of Parties — The Feeling of the People — ^The " Peace" Party — Important 
Letter from Governor Vance in January, 1S64— His Reelection— Tlie 
War Party— The Peace Party— The Moderates— Governor Graham'3 
Letter of March, 1865 — Evacuation of Richmond, . . . 121 



CHAPTER X. 

General Johnston preparing to uncover Raleigh — Urgent Letter from Gover- 
nor Swain to Governor Graham — Governor Graham's Reply — A Pro- 
gramme of Operations agreed upon — Finally Governors Graham and 
Swain start for Sherman's Headquarters, ..... 184 



CHAPTER XI. 

Raleigh, when uncovered— The Commissioners to General Sherman — They 
start — Are recalled by General Johnston — Are stopped by Kilpatrick'a 
Forces — Their Interview with Kilpatrick — Are carried to Sherman's 
Headquarters— His Reply to Governor Vance— The further Proceedings 
of the Commission — A Pleasant Incident — The Commissioners return 
to Raleigh— Governor Vance had left— His Letter to Sherman— The 
Federal Troops enter Raleigh— Incidents, ..... 145 



CHAPTER XII. 

Johnston's Retreat— Governors Graham and Swain misunderstood— Wheel- 
er's Cavalry— Confederate Occupancy of Chapel Hill— The Last Blood — 
" Stai's and Stripes"— One in Death— General Atkins— Scenes around 
. Raleigh— Military Lawlessness ...... 165 



10 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PAGB 

Correspondence betvp-een Governor Swain and General Sherman— Governor 

Vance's Position and Conduct— Kilpatrick — The Conduct of the Serv- 
ants — " Lee's Men"— President Lincoln, . . . .178 



CHAPTER XIV. 

General Stoneman — Outrages — Cold-blooded Murders — General Gillam— 
Progress through Lenoir, Wilkes, Surry, and Stokes— Stoneman's De- 
tour into Virginia— The Defense of Salisbury— The Fight in the Streets 
of Salisbury— General Polk's Family — Temporary Occupancy of Salis- 
bury—Continuous Raiding, ...... 193 



CHAPTER XV. 

Iredell County — General Palmer's Courtesy to Mrs. Vance — Subsequent 
Treatment of this Lady by Federal Soldiers— Major Hambright's Cru- 
elty in Lenoir— Case of Dr. Ballew and Others— General Gillam — His 
Outrages at Mrs. Hagler's— Dr. Boone Clark— Terrible Treatment of 
his Family— Lieutenants Rice and Mallobry — Mrs. General Vaughan — 
Morganton, ......... 218 



CHAPTER XVI. • 

Plundering of Colonel Carson— Of Rev. Msv Paxton— General Martin re- 
pulses Kirby— Gillam plunders during the Armistice— Occupation of 
Asheville — "Wholesale Plunder— Dispatch from General Pahner, 



CONTENTS. il 

CHAPTER XVII. 

PAGE 

Surrender of General Lee— Why North-Carolina could not bav<^ ^akcn Meas- 
ures to send Commissioners— Review— The Coal-fields Railway— Diffi- 
culties of Transportation— Provisions— The Last Call— Recreants— Pri- 
vations— The Condition of the Press, . . . . .235 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

rhe University— Its Early History— Its Continued Growth— The Ardor of the 
Young Men — Application for Relief from Conscription — Governor 
Swain to President Davis— Another Draft on the Boys— A Dozen Boys 
in College when Sherman comes ; and the Bells rinji on — " Commence- 
ment" in 1865— One Graduate— He pronounces the Valedictory— Con- 
clusion, . . . • • • • • • ^^* 



APPENDIX. 



I._XJniversity Record, . 



267 



II.— General James Johnston Pettigrew, . • . . .273 



THE lAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR 



IN 



ISrORTH-CAI^OLIlSrA. 



CHAPTER I. 

DIFFICULTIES OF THE HISTOKY — THE POSITION OF NORTH-CAEO- 
LINA — THE PEACE CONVENTION — THE MONTGOMERY CONVEN- 
TION — GOVERNOR VANCE — THE SALISBURY PRISON — TESTI- 
MONY ON THE TRIAL. 

It will be long before the history of the late war 
can be soberly and impartially written. The passions 
that have been evoked by it will not soon slumber, 
and it is perhaps expecting too much of human natui'e, 
to believe that a fair and candid statement of facts on 
either side will soon be made. There is as yet too 
much to be forgotten — too much to be forgiven. 

The future historian of the great struggle will 
doubtless have ample material at his disposal ; but 
from a vast mass of conflicting evidence he will have 
to sift, combine, and arrange the grains of truth — a 
work to which few men of this generation are com23e- 
tent. But meanwhile there is much to be done in col- 



14 . THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 

lecting evidence, especially by those wlio desire that 
justice shall be done to the South : and this evidence, 
it is to be hoped, will be largely drawn from private 
sources. History has in general no more invaluable and 
irrefragable witnesses for the truth than are to be found 
in the journals, memoranda, and private correspond- 
ence of the prominent and influential men who either 
acted in, or were compelled to remain quiet observers of 
the events of their day. EsiDCcially will this be found 
to be the case when posterity shall sit in judgment on 
the past four years in the South. From no other 
sources can so fair a representation be made of the 
conflicts of opinion, or of the motives of action in the 
time when madness seemed to rule 4lie hour, when all 
individual and all State efibrts for peace were power- 
less, when sober men were silenced, and when even 
the public press could hardly be considered free. 

If it be true of the South in general, that even in 
the most excited localities Tvarning voices were raised 
in vain, and that a strong undercurrent of good sense 
and calm reflection undoubtedly existed — overborne 
for a time by the elements of strife and revolution — 
more especially and with tenfold emphasis is it true 
of the State of !N"orth-Carolina. 

" Wliere we lav, 
Our chimneys were blown down : and, as they say, 
Lamentings heard i' the air ; strange screams of death ; 
And prophesying, with accents terrible. 
Of dire combustion, and confused events, 
New-hatched to the woful time." 

That North-Carolina accepted a destiny which she 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 15 

was unable- to control, when she ranged herself in the 
war for Southern independence, is a fact which can 
not be disputed. And though none the less ardently 
did her sons spring to arms, and none the less gener- 
ously and splendidly did her people sustain the great 
army that poured forth from her borders; though none 
the less patient endurance and obedience to the gen- 
eral government was theirs ; yet it is also a fact, in- 
disputable and on record, that ISTorth-Carolina was 
never allowed her just weight of influence in the coun- 
cils of the Southern Confederacy, nor were the opin- 
ions or advice of her leading men either solicited or 
regarded. And therefore, nowhere as in the private, 
unreserved correspondence of her leading men, can her 
attitude at the beginning, her temper and her course 
all through, and her action at the close of the war, be 
so clearly and so fairly defined and illustrated, and 
shown to be eminently consistent and characteristic 
throughout. 

The efforts made by ISTorth-Carolina, during the 
winter and spring of 1861, to maintain peace and to 
preserve the Union, were unappreciated, unsuccessful, 
and perhaps were not even generally knoAvn. In Feb- 
ruary of that year, two separate delegations left the 
State, appointed by her Legislature, each consisting 
of selections from her best citizens — one for Washing- 
ton City and the other for Montgomery, Alabama. 
Judge Ruffin, Governor Morehead, Governor Reid, 
D. M. Barringer, and George Davis were accredited to 
the Peace Convention at Washington ; Governor Swain 
and Messrs. Bridsrers and Ransom to the Convention 



16 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

at Montgomery, to meet the delegations expected to 
convene there from the other Southern States. 

Neither of these delegations, however, were able to, 
effect any thing. They were received with courtesy, 
respect, and attention on each side, but nothing was 
done. The Peace Convention at Washington was a 
failure — why or how, has never been clearly shown. 
If one or other of the distinguished gentlemen who 
formed the North-Carolina delegation would commit 
an account of the mission to writing, he would be 
doing the State good service. I would venture to 
suggest it to Judge Ruffin, whose appearance there 
was said to have been in the hio-hest deo-ree venerable 
and impressive, and his speech for the Union and for 
the Old Flag most eloquent and affecting. 

The expected delegations from the other Southern 
States to Montgomery failed to arrive, and North-Car- 
olina Avas there alone, and could only look on. The 
provisional government for such of the States as had 
already seceded was then acting, and the general Con- 
federate government was in process of organization. 
Our delegates were treated with marked courtesy, and 
were invited to attend the secret sessions of the Con- 
gress, which, however, they declined. North-Caro- 
lina stood there alone ; and as she maintained an atti- 
tude of calm and sad deprecation, she was viewed with 
distrust and suspicion by all extremists, and was taunt- 
ed with her constitutional slowness and lack of chival- 
ric fire. The moderation and prudence of her counsels 
were indeed but little suited to the fiery temper of that 
latitude. Too clearly, even then, she saw the end 






THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. l7 

from the beginning ; but what was left for her, when 
the clouds lowered and the storm at last broke, but to 
stand where the God of nature had placed her, and 
where affection and interest both inclined her — in the 
South and viith the South ? To that standard, then, 
her brave sons flocked, in obedience to her summons ; 
for them and for their safety and success were her 
prayers and tears given; for their comfort and sub- 
sistence every nerve was strained in the mortal strug- 
gle that followed ; and their graves will be forever hal- 
lowed — none the less, I repeat, that from the first the 
great body of her people and the best and most clear- 
sighted of her public men deprecated the whole busi- 
ness of secession, and with sad prevision foretold the 
result. 

If history shall do her justice, the part played by 
North-Carolina all through this mournful and bloody 
drama will be found well worthy of careful study. 

The quiet and self-reliant way in which, when she 
found remonstrance to be in vain, she went to her in- 
evitable work ; the foresight of her preparations ; the 
thoroughness of her equipments ; the splendor of her 
achievements on the battle-field ; her cheerful and pa- 
tient yielding to all lawful demands of the general 
government ; her watchful guard against unlawful en- 
croachments, as the times grew more and more lawless ; 
her silence, her modesty, and her efficiency — were all 
strikingly JVbrth- Caroliniaii. Not one laurel would she 
appropriate from the brow of a sister State — nay, the 
blood shed and the sufferings endured in the common 
cause but cement the Southern States tosfether in dear- 



18 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

er bonds of affection. No word uttered by a N"ort 
Carolinian in defense or praise of his own mother, cai 
be construed as an attempt to exalt her at the expense' 
of others. But I am speaking now of North-Carolina 
alone, and my principal object will be to present the 
closing scenes of the war, as they appeared within 
some part of her borders, and to make a plain record 
of her action therein — a sketch which may afford valu, 
able memoranda to the future historian. 

Much of the energy and the efficiency displayed by 
the State in providing for the exigencies of war, were 
due to the young man whom she chose for her Gover- 
nor, in August, 1862. Governor Yance was one of the 
people — one of the soldiers — and came from the camp 
to the palace undoubtedly the most popular man in 
the State. A native of Buncombe county, he had been 
in a great measure the architect of his own fortunes. 
Possessing unrivaled abilities as a popular speaker, he 
had made his way rapidly in the confidence of the 
brave and free mountaineers of Western Carolina, and 
was a member of the United States House of Represent, 
atives for the term ending at the inauguration of Pres- 
ident Lincoln. He used all his influence most ardently 
to avert the disruption of the Union, down to the time 
when the Convention of May, 1861, passed the ordi- 
nance of secession. Then, following the fortunes of his 
OAvn State, he threw himself with equal ardor into the 
ranks of her army. Volunteering as private in one of 
the first companies raised in Buncombe, he was soon 
elected captain, and thence rose rapidly to be Colonel 
of the Twenty-sixth regiment. His further military 



THE LAST laNETT DAYS OF THE WAE. 19 

career was closed by his being elected Governor in 
1862, by an overwhelming ^ote, over the gentleman 
who was generally considered as the candidate of the 
secession party. We were, indeed, all secessionists 
then ; but those who were defined as " original seces- 
sionists " — men who invoked and cheered on the move- 
ment and the war — were ever in a small minority in 
this State, both as to numbers and to influence. Gov- 
ernor Yance was elected because he had been a strong 
Union man, ^and loas a, gallant soldier — two qualifica- 
tions which some of our Northern brethren can not 
admit as consistent or admirable in one and the same 
true character, but which together constituted the 
strongest claim uj^on the confidence and affection of 
North-Carolina. 

Governor "Vance's career from the first was marked 
by devotion to the people who had distinguished him, 
and by a determination to do his duty to thetii at all 
hazards. This is not the place, nor have I the material 
for such a display of Governor Vance's course of action 
as would do him deserved justice ; but this I may say, 
that his private correspondence, if ever it shall be pub- 
lished, will endear him still more to the State which 
he loved, and to the best of his ability served. 

His employment of a blockade-runner to bring in 
clothing for the North-Carolina troops was a noble 
idea, and proved a brilliant success.* If he had done 



* Since tie publication of the above, I have been informed by Governor Vance 
that the first suggestion of this plan was due to Gen. J. G. Martin alone. He was 
at that time Adjutant-General of the State, and at a consultation held by Governor 
Vance soon after his entrance upon office, to devise ways and means for providing 



20 THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

nothing else in his official career to prove himself 
worthy to be our Governor, this alone would be suf- 
ficient. It matters but little as to the amount, great 
or small, of Confederate money spent in this service. 
It is all gone now ; but the substantial and incalculable 
good that resulted at the time from this expenditure, 
can neither be disputed nor forgotten. For two years 
his swift-sailing vessels, especially the A. D. Vance, 
escaped the blockaders, and steamed regularly in and 
out of the port of Wilmington, followed by the pray- 
ers and anxieties of our whole people. " The Ad- 
vance is in!" was a signal for congratulations in 
every town in the State; for we knew that another 
precious cargo was safe, of shoes, and blankets, and 
cloth, and medicines, and cards. And so it was that 
when other brave men went barefoot and ill-clad 
through the winter storms of Virginia, our own Korth 
Carolina boys were well supplied, and their wives and 
little ones at home were clothed, thanks to our Gov- 
ernor and to our God. 

I have seen tears of thankfulness running down the 
cheeks of our soldiers' wives on receiving a pair of 
these cards, by which alone they were to clothe and 
procure bread for themselves and their children. And 
they never failed to express their sense of what they 
owed to their Governor. " God bless him !" they would 
cry, '' for thinking of it. And God loill bless him." 

One striking evidence of the fullness and efficiency 

for our soldiers, Gen. Martin suggested and advocated the employment of a block- 
ade-runner. It was a bold and happy thought, and as boldly and happily carried 
out by Governor Vance, 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 21 

of these supplies I can not refrain from giving, as it 
occurred at the close of the war, when our resources, 
it might be supposed, were utterly exhausted. It will 
also serve to show what manner of man Governor 
Vance was, in more ways than one. 

In February, 1865, the attention of our people was 
called to the condition of the Federal prisoners at 
Salisbury. The officer in charge of them may or may 
not have been as he is represented. Time will bring 
the truth to light. But it was alleged against him, 
that he would not only do nothing himself for the un- 
happy prisoners under his care, but would allow no 
private interference for their comfort. The usual answer 
of all such men, when appealed to on the score of com- 
mon humanity, was, " What business have these Yan- 
kees here ?" This was deemed triumphant and unan- 
swerable. That their food should be scanty and of 
poor quality was unavoidable when our own citizens 
were in want and our soldiers were on half-rations ; 
but sufficient clothing, kind attendance, and common 
decencies and comforts were, or might have been, ex- 
tended to all within the bounds of our State. How 
far the Federal Government was itself responsible and 
criminal in this matter, by its refusal to exchange 
prisoners, future investigations will decide. The fol- 
lowing extract of a letter from a prominent member 
of our last Legislature to a distinguished citizen, shows 
what the State of North-Carolina could and would 
have done for their relief : 

*' I called at Governor Vance's office, in the capitol, 
and found him sitting alone ; and though his desk was 



22 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

covered with papers and documents, these did not 
seem to engage his attention. He rather seemed to be 
in profound thought. He expressed himself pleased 
to see me, and proceeded to say that he had just seen 
a Confederate surgeon from Salisbury — mentioning his 
name — and was shocked at what he had heard of the 
condition of the Federal prisoners there. He went on 
to detail what he had heard, and testified deep feeling 
during the recital. He concluded by saying that he 
wished to see the State take some action on the sub- 
ject. I assured him immediately how entirely I sym- 
pathized with him, and asked what relief it was in our 
power to bestow. He replied that the State had a 
full supply of clothing, made of English cloth, for our 
own troops, and that she had also a considerable quan- 
tity made of our own factory cloth. And further, that 
the State had also a very large supply of under-clothing, 
blankets, etc. ; a supply of all which things might be 
dispensed to the prisoners, without trenching upon the 
comfort of our own troops. I told him that a resolu- 
tion, vesting him with proper authority to act in the 
matter, could, I thought, be passed through the Legis- 
lature. That I thought it very desirable that such a 
resolution should be passed unanimously; and with a 
view to obviate objections from extreme men, it was 
better so to shape the resolution as to make it the 
means of obtaining reciprocal relief for our own prison- 
ners at the North. This was done. The resolution 
requesting Governor Vance to efiect an arrangement 
by which, in consideration of blankets, clothing, etc., 
to be distributed by the Federal Government to prison- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 23 

ners of war from North-Carolina, blankets, clothing, 
etc., in like quantity, should be distributed by the State 
of JSTorth-Garolina to the Federal prisoners at Salis- 
bury, passed both houses, I think, without one dis- 
sentient voice, within the next day." 

The letter-books of Governor Vance, it will be re- 
membered, passed into the hands of the military 
authorities in May, 1865; and, under the order of 
General Schofield, were transmitted to the State 
Department at Washington. Whether they have been 
or are to be returned to the Executive Department of 
this State, to whom they properly belong, remains to 
be seen. A correspondent of the New-York press, 
who was allowed to examine them, remarks that 
" among much evil they exhibited redeeming traits of 
character!'''' that "the letters of Governor Vance to 
Mr. Secretary Seddon, of the War Department of .Rich- 
mond, and to General Bradley Johnson, who had con- 
trol of the prisoners at Salisbury, urged upon both 
these functionaries the immediate relief of the suffering 
prisoners, as alike dictated by humanity and policy." 
This correspondence, when it shall come to light, will 
show that the action of the executive was as prompt 
and decided as that of the legislative department of 
the State. Whatever may be said of the treatment 
of prisoners at Andersonville and elsewhere, it is cer- 
tain that no efforts were spared on the part of the 
public authorities of North-Carolina, nor, we may add, 
of the community around Salisbury, to mitigate, as far 
as was possible, the inevitable horrors of war ; and 
that our Governor, especially, exerted all the power 



24 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

and influence at his command to render immediate and 
effectual relief. 

Governor Vance received no reply to his application 
to the Federal authorities. From General Bradley- 
Johnson, at Salisbury, he received in reply a list of 
clothing and provisions then being received from the 
North for the prisoners ; and a statement that they 
needed nothing but some tents, which Governor Vance 
was unable to send them. 

The investigations of the Gee trial, held at Raleigh 
since the above was written, have served lo substan- 
tiate all that I have said. What we could do, we wer-e 
willing to do for our unhappy prisoners. But our own 
people, our own soldiers, were on the verge of starva- 
tion. Every effort was made by our authorities to in. 
duce the Northern Government to exchange, without 
effect. Their men died by thousands in our semi- 
tropical climate, because we were powerless to relieve 
them with either food or medicine. No one can read 
the testimony given at the Gee trial without a deep 
impression of the awful state of destitution among us. 
The country around Salisbury was stripped bare of 
provisions, and the railroads were utterly unfit for ser- 
vice. One of the witnesses stated that they had to 
take up the turn-outs to mend the road with. Writing 
now, at a distance of nearly two years, I can not recall 
the dark and hopeless days of that winter without a 
shudder. We knew the condition of those prisoners 
while we were mourning over the destitution of our 
own army. The coarse bread served at our own 
meagre repasts was made bitter by our reflections. A 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 25 

lady, writing from Salisbury, said : " I am much more 
concerned at the condition of these prisoners than at 
the advance of Sherman's army." 

That North-Carolina had at least clothing to offer 
them was more than could be said for any other South- 
ern State in that respect. She was probably worse 
off for provision than those south of her. She gave 
what she had. She did what she could. 



CHAPTER n. 

WINTER OP 1864-'5 — LETTER OF GOVERNOR VANCE— APPEAL 
FOR GENERAL LEE'S ARINIY — THE DESTITUTION OF THE PEO- 
PLE — FALL OF FORT FISHER — ADVANCE OP GENERAL SHER- 
MAN — CONTRAST BETWEEN SHERMAN AND CORNW.NJLLIS — 
EXTRACTS FROM LORD CORNWALLIS'S ORDER-BOOK — THE 
"BLOODY TARLETON." 

The fall and winter of 1864-'5 were especially 
gloomy to our people. The hopes that had so long 
delusively buoyed up the Southern States in their des- 
perate Struggle against overwhelming odds were be- 
ginning to flag very ^perceptibly in every part of the 
Confederacy w^here people were capable of appreciat- 
ing the facts of the situation. More especially, then, 
in North-Carolina, situated so near to the seat of war 
that false rumors, telegrams, and "reliable gentlemen" 
from the front had never had more than a very limited 
circulation here, and whose sober people never had 
been blinded or dazzled by the glare of false lights ; 
more especially here were there only gloomy outlooks 
for the year 1865, as it dawned. 

In September, 1864, our representative Governor 
had written thus confidentially to his oldest and most 
warmly attached personal friend, a gentleman of the 



I 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 27 

highest consideration in the State — a letter that needs 
neither introduction nor comment to secure it atten- 
tion: 

"Raleigh, September 22, 18G4. 

" I would be glad if I could have a long talk with 
you. I never before have been so gloomy about the 
condition of affairs. Early's defeat in the valley I 
consider as the turning-point in this campaign ; and, 
confidentially, I fear it seals the fate of Richmond, 
though not immediately. It will require our utmost 
exertions to retain our footing in Virginia till '65 
comes in. McClellan's defeat is placed among the 
facts, and abolitionism is rampant for four years more. 
The army in Georgia is utterly demoralized ; and by 
the time President Davis, who has gone there, dis- 
plays again his obstinacy in defying public sentiment, 
and his ignorance of men in the change of command- 
ers, its ruin will be complete. They are now desert- 
ing by hundreds. In short, if the enemy pushes his 
luck till the close of the year, we shall not be offered 
any terms at all. 

" The signs which discourage me more than auglit 
else are the utter demoralization of the people. With 
a base of communication five hundred miles in Sher- 
man's rear, through our own country, not a bridge has 
been burned, not a car thrown from its track, nor a 
man shot by the people whose country he has deso- 
lated. They seem everywhere to submit when our 
armies are withdrawn. What does this show, my 
dear sirP It shows what I have always believed, that 
the great popular heart is not now, and never has been 



28 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

in this war. It was a revolution of tlie Politicians, 
not the People ; and was fought at first by the natural 
enthusiasm of our young men, and has been kept 
going by State and sectional pride, assisted by that 
bitterness of feeling produced by the cruelties and 
brutalities of the enemy. 

" Still, I am not out of heart, for, as you know, I 
am of a buoyant and hopeful temperament. Things 
may come round yet. General Lee is a great man^ 
and has the remnant of the best army on earth, bleed- 
ing, torn, and overpowered though it be. Saturday 
night may yet come to all of our troubles, and be fol- 
lowed by the blessed hours of rest. God grant it ! 
'Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief ' in final 
liberty and independence. I would fain be doing. 
How can I help to win the victory ? What can I do ? 
How shall I guide this suftering and much-oppressed 
Israel that looks to me through the tangled and bloody 
pathway wherein our lines have fallen ? Duty called 
me to resist to the utmost the disruption of the Union. 
Duty calls me now to stand by the new union, ' to the 
last gasp with truth and loyalty.' This is my consola- 
tion. The beginning was bad : I had no hand in it. 
Should the end be bad, I shall, with God's help, be 
equally blameless. 

" I hope when you come down, you will give your- 
self time to be with me a great deal. 

" I am, dear sir, very truly yours, 

" Z. B. Vance." 

Tlie saddest forebodings of this letter, which would 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 29 

have been echoed by many a failing heart in the State, 
were soon to be realized. By January, 1865, there 
was very little room left for " belief" of any sort in 
the ultimate success of the Confederacy. All the 
necessaries of life were scarce, and were held at fabu- 
lous and still increasing prices. The great freshet of 
January 10th, which washed low grounds, carried off 
fences, bridges, mills, and tore up railroads all through 
the central part of the State, at once doubled the 
price of corn and flour. Two destructive fires in the 
same month, which consumed great quantities of gov- 
ernment stores at Charlotte and at Salisbury, added 
materially to the general gloom and depression. The 
very elements seemed to have enlisted against us. 
And soon, with no great surplus of food from the 
wants of her home population, North-Carolina found 
herself called upon to furnish supplies for two armies. 
Early in January, an urgent and most pressing ap- 
peal was made for Lee's army ; and the people, most 
of whom knew not where they would get bread for 
their children in three months' time, responded nobly, 
as they had always done to any call for " the soldiers." 
Few were the hearts in any part of the land that did 
not thrill at the thought that those who were fighting 
for us were in want of food. From the humble cabin 
on the hill-side, where the old brown spinning-wheel 
and the rude loom were the 'only breastworks against 
starvation, up through all grades of life, there were 
none who did not feel a deep and tender, almost heart- 
breaking solicitude for our noble soldiers. For them 
the last barrel of flour was divided, the last luxury in 



GO THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

homes that had once abounded was cheerfully surren- 
dered. Every available resource was taxed, every ex- 
pedient of domestic economy was put in practice — as 
indeed had been done all along ; but our people went 
to work even yet with fresh zeal. I speak now of Cen- 
tral North-Carolina, where many families of the high- 
est respectability and refinement lived for months on 
corn-bread, sorghum, and peas ; where meat was sel- 
dom on the table, tea and coffee never ; where dried 
apples and peaches were a luxury; where children 
went barefoot through the winter, and ladies made 
their own shoes, and wove their own homespuns ; 
where the carpets were cut up into blankets, and win- 
dow-curtains and sheets were torn up for hospital uses ; 
where soldiers' socks were knit day and night, while 
for home service clothes were twice turned, and 
patches were patched again ; and all this continually, 
and with an energy and a cheerfulness that may well 
be called heroic. 

There were localities in the State where a few rich 
planters boasted of having "never felt the war;" 
there were ladies whose wardrobes encouraged the 
blockade-runners, and whose tables were still heaped 
with all the luxuries they had ever known. There 
were such doubtless in every State in the Confederacy. 
I speak not now of these, but of the great body of • 
our citizens — the middle class as to fortune, generally 
the highest as to cultivation and intelligence — these 
were the people who denied themselves and their little . 
ones, that they might be able to send relief to the gal- 
lant men who lay in the trenches before Petersburgh, 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE TVAK. 31 

and were even then living on crackers and parched 
corn. 

The fall of Fort Fisher and the occupation of Wil- 
mington, the fiilure of the peace commission, and the 
nnchecked advance of Sherman's army northward from 
Savannah, were the all-absorbing topics of discussion 
with our people during the first months of the year 
1865. The tide of war was rolling in upon us. Hith- 
erto our privations, heavily as they had borne upon 
domestic comfort, had been light in comparison with 
those of the people in the States actually invaded by 
the Federal armies ; but now we were to be qualified 
to judge, by our own experience, how far their trials 
and losses had exceeded ours. What the fate of our 
pleasant towns and villages and of our isolated farm- 
houses would be, we could easily read by the light of 
the blazing roof-trees that lit up the path of the ad- 
vancing army. General Sherman's principles were 
well known, for they had been carefully laid down by 
him in his letter to the Mayor of Atlanta, September, 
1864, and had been thoroughly put in practice by him 
in his further progress since. To shorten the war by 
increasing its severity : this was his plan — simple, and 
no doubt to a certain extent efiective. But it is surely 
well worth serious inquiry and investigation on the 
part of those who decide these questions, and settle 
the laws of nations, how far the laws and usages of 
war demand and justify the entire ruin of a country 
and its unresisting inhabitants by the invading army ; 
or if those laws, as they are interpreted by the com.- 
mon-sense of civilized humanity, do indeed justify such 



32 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 

a course, how far they are susceptible of change and 
improvement. 

That the regulations which usually obtain in armies 
invading an enemy's country do at least permit every 
species of annoyance and oppression, tending to assist 
the successful prosecution of the war, to be exercised 
toward non-combatants, is unhappily testified by the 
annals of even modern and so-called Christian warfare. 
Especially are the evil passions of a brutal soldiery 
excited and inflamed where the inhabitants betake 
themselves to guerrilla or partisan warfare ; and more 
especially and fatally in the case of long-protracted 
sieges, or the taking of a town by storm. The ex- 
cesses committed by both the English and the French 
armies in the war of the Peninsula are recorded (and 
execrated) by their own generals, and are character- 
ized by the historian as " all crimes which man in his 
worst excesses can commit — horrors so atrocious that 
their very atrocity preserves them from our full exe- 
cration because it makes it impossible to describe 
them." Havoc and ruin have always accompanied in- 
vading armies to a greater or less degree, modified by 
the causes of the war, the character of the command- 
ing ofiicers, and the amount of discipline maintained. 

A little more historical and political knowledge dif- 
fused among her people might have saved the South 
the unnecessarily bitter lesson she has received on 
this matter. Very, very few of the unthinking young 
men and women who clamored so madly for war four 
years ago, knew what fiend they were invoking. Few, 
very few of their leaders knew. Could the curtain 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 33 

that vailed the future have been lifted but for a mo- 
ment before them, how would they have recoiled hor- 
ror-stricken ! But while admitting that in cases of 
very bitter national hatreds, ill-disciplined soldiery, 
and raw generals, excesses are allowed and defended, 
it is also the province of history to point with pride 
to those instances where veteran commanders, know- 
ing well the horrors of war, seek to alleviate its mise- 
ries, and " seize the opportunities of nobleness," and, 
believing with Napier, that " discipline has its root in 
patriotism," do effectually control the armies they 
lead. Of such as these there are happily not a few 
great names whose humanity and generosity exhibited 
to the unfortunate inhabitants of the country they 
were traversing lend additional lustre to their fame 
as consummate soldiers. I shall, however, recall but 
one example to confirm this j^osition — an example 
likely to be particularly interesting to Southerners as 
a parallel, and most striking as a contrast, to General 
Sherman's course in the South. 

In the month of January, 1781, exactly eighty-four 
years before General Sherman's artillery trains woke 
the echoes through the heart of the Carolinas, it 
pleased God to direct the course of another invading 
army along much the same track ; an army that had 
come three thousand miles to put down what was in 
truth " a rebellion ;" an army stanch in enthusiastic 
loyalty to the government for whose rights it was 
contending; an army also in pursuit of retreating 
"rebels," and panting to put the finishing blow to a 
hateful secession, and whose commander endeavored 



34 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

to arrive at his ends by strategical operations very 
much resembling those which in this later day were 
crowned with success. Here the parallel ends. The 
country traversed then and now by invading armies, 
was, eighty-four years ago, poor and wild and thinly 
settled. Instead of a single grand, deliberate, and 
triumphant march through a highly cultivated and un- 
defended country, there had been many of the undu- 
lations of war in the fortunes of that army — now pur- 
suing, now retreating — and finally, in the last hot chase 
of the flying (and yet triumphant) rebels from the 
southern to the northern border of ^NTorth-Carolina, 
that invading army, to add celerity to its movements, 
voluntarily and deliberately destroyed all its baggage 
and stores, the noble and accomplished Commander- 
in-Chief himself setting the example. The inhabit- 
ants of the country, thinly scattered and unincum- 
bered with wealth, exhibited the most determined 
hostility to the invaders, so that if ever an invading 
ari»y had good reason and excuse for ravaging and 
pillaging as it passed along, that army may surely be 
allowed it. 

What was the policy of its commander under such 
circumstances toward the people of Carolina ? 

I have before me now Lord Cornwallis's own order- 
book — truly venerable and interesting — bound in 
leather, with a brass clasp, the paper coarse and the 
ink faded, but the handwriting uncommonly good, and 
the whole in excellent preservation. A valuable relic 
in these days, when it is well to know what are the 
traits which go to make a true soldier, and how he 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE "WAE. 35 

may at least endeavor to divest war of its brutality. 
A few extracts will show wliat Cornwallis's principles 
Avere. 

" Camp near Beattie's Foed, ) 
January 28, 1781. f 

" Lord Cornwallis has so often experienced tlie zeal 
and good- will of the army, that he has not the smallest 
doubt that the officers and soldiers will most cheer- 
fully submit to the ill conveniences that must naturally 
attend war so remote from water carriage and the 
magazines of the army. The supply of rum.for a time 
Avill be absolutely impossible, and that of meal very 
imcertain. It is needless to point out to the officers 
the necessity of preserving the strictest discipline, and 
of preventing the oppressed people from suifering vio- 
lence by the hands from whom they are taught to look 
for protection. 

*' To prevent the total destruction of the country 
and the ruin of his Majesty's service, it is necessary 
that the regulation in regard to the number of horses 
taken should be strictly observed. Major-General 
Leslie will be pleased to require the most exact obedi- 
ence to this order from the officers commanding bri- 
gades and corps. The supernumerary horses that may 
from time to time be discovered will be sent to head 
quarters." 

February 2, 1781. j 

'* Lord Cornwallis is highly displeased that several 

houses have been set on fire to-day during the march — - 

a disgrace to the army — and he will punish with the 



" Headquarters, Cansler's Plantation, 



36 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAB. 

utmost severity any person or persons who shall be 
found guilty of committing so disgraceful an outrage. 
His Lordship requests the commanding officers of the 
corps will endeavor to find the persons who set fire to 
the houses this day." 

* " Headquaeters, Dobbin's House, ) 

February 17, 1781. [ 

*' Lord Cornwallis is very sorry to be obliged to call 
the attention of the officers of the army to the repeated 
orders against plundering, and he assures the officers 
that if their duty to their king and country, and their 
feeling for humanity, are not sufficient to enforce their 
obedience to them, he must, however reluctantly, 
make use of such power as the military laws have 
placed in his hands. 

" Great complaints having been made of negroes 
straggling from the line of march, 23lundering and 
using violence to the inhabitants, it is Lord Corn- 
wallis's positive orders that no negro shall be suffered 
to carry arms on any pretense, and all officers and 
other persons who employ negroes are desired to ac- 
quaint them that the provost-marshal has received or- 
ders to seize and shoot on the spot any negro following 
the army who may offend against these regulations. 

"It is expected that captains will exert themselves 
to keep good order and prevent plundering. Should 
any complaint be made of the wagoners or followers 
of the army, it will be necessarily imputed to neglect 
on the part of the captains. Any officer who looks on 
with indifference, and does not do his utmost to pre- 
vent shameful marauding, will be considered in a more 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 37 

criminal light than the persons Avho commit these 
scandalous crimes, which must bring disgrace and ruin 
on his Majesty's service. 

" All foraging parties will give receipts for the sup- 
plies taken by them." 

*' Headquarters, Freelands, ) 
February 28, 1781. j 

MEMORANDUM. 

"A watch found by the regiment of Bose. The 
owner may have it from the adjutant of that regiment 
on proving his property." 



" Camp Smith's Plantation, ) 



March 1, 1781. 
"brigade orders. 
" It is Brigadier-General O'Hara's orders that the 
officers commanding companies cause an immediate in- 
spection of the articles of clothing, etc., in the posses- 
sion of the women in their companies, and an exact ac- 
count taken thereof by the pay-sergeants; after which, 
their necessaries are to be regularly examined at pro- 
per intervals, and every article found in addition 
thereto burnt at the head of the company — except such 
as have been fairly purchased on application to the 
commanding officers and added to their former list by 
the sergeants as above. The officers are likewise or- 
dered to make these examinations at such times, and 
in such manner as to prevent the women (supposed to 
be the source of infamous plundering*) from evadin 
the purport of this order. 

* 'Tis a thousand pities that a certain gallant major-general, late of the caT' 



(T 



38 THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

" A woman having been robbed of a Avatcb, a black 
silk handkerchief, a gallon of peach brandy, and a shirt, 
and, as by the description, by a soldier of the Guards, 
the camp and every man's kit is to be immediately 
searched for the same by the officers of the brigade. 

" Notwithstanding every order, every entreaty that 
Lord Cornwallis has given to the army, to prevent the 
shameful practice of plundering and distressing the 
country, and these orders backed by every effort that 
can have been made by Brigadier-General O'Hara, lie 
is shocked to find that this evil still prevails, and 
ashamed to observe that the frequent complaints he 
receives from headquarters of the irregularity Of the 
Guards particularly affect the credit of that corps. 
He therefore calls upon the officers, non-commissioned 
officers, and those men who are yet possessed of the 
feelings of humanity, and actuated by the principles 
of true soldiers, the love of their country^ the good of 
the service^ and the honor of their own corps^ to assist 
with the same indefatigable diligence the General 
himself is determined to persevere in, in order to de- 
tect and punish all men and women so offending with 
the utmost severity of example." 

Such was Lord Cornwa lis's policy. What was the 
disposition toward him of the country through which 
he was passing ? "So inveterate was the rancor of 
the inhabitants, that the expresses for the Commander- 
in-Chief were frequently murdered ; and the people, 

airy service in General S.'3 army, (now Minister to Chili,) could not have his at- 
tention drawn to this. 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAR. 39 

instead of remaining quietly at home to receive pay 
for the produce of tlieir plantations, made it a practice 
to waylay the British foraging parties, fire their rifles 
from concealed places, and then fly to the woods." 
(Stedman's History.) 

In all cases where the country people practice such 
warfare, retaliation by the army so annoyed is justi- 
fied. But even in Colonel Tarleton's (" bloody Tarle- 
t»n's") command, Lord Cornwallis took care that 
justice should be done. In Tarleton's own narrative 
we read : 

" On the arrival of some country people, Lord Corn- 
wallis directed Lieutenant-Colonel Tarleton to dis- 
mount his dragoons and mounted infxntry, and to 
form them into a rank entire, for the convenient in- 
spection of the inhabitants, and to fiicilitate the dis- 
covery of the villains who had committed atrocious 
outrages the preceding evening. A sergeant and one 
private were pointed out, and accused of rape and 
robbery. They were condemned to death by martial 
law. The immediate infliction of this sentence exhi- 
bited to the army and manifested to the country the 
discipline and justice of the British General." 

In Lee's Memoirs, we learn that on one occasion he 
captured on the banks of the Haw, in Alamance, two 
of Tarleton's staif, '' who had been detained in settling 
for the subsistence of the detachment.'''' What was 
the course of General Sherman's officers, eighty-four 
years afterward, in the very same neighborhood, on 
the very same ground, let us now see. " Look on this 
picture, then on that." 



CHAPTER III. 

JUDGE TvUFFIN — HIS niSTOTlY — HIS CHABACTER — HIS SERVICES 
— GENERAIi couch's OUTRAGES AFTER PEACE HAD BEEN 
DECLARED — GENERAL SHERMAN'S OUTRAGES — HIS UN- 
BLUSHING OFFICIAL REPORT. — "ARMY CORRESPONDENTS" — 
SHERMAN IN FAYETTEVILLE — CORNWALLIS IN FAYETTE- 
VILLE — COINCIDENCES OP PLANS — CONTRASTS IN MODES — 
THE NEGRO SUFFERS — TROOPS CONCENTRATING UNDER 
GENER.VL JOHNSTON. 

In the first week of May, 1865, after the final sur- 
render of General Jolmston's army, and after General 
Grant's proclamation of j^rotection to private property, 
Major-General Couch, witli a detachment of some 
twelve or fourteen thousand infantry, passing up the 
main road from Raleigh to Greensboro, encamped on 
a noble plantation, beautifully situated on both sides 
of the Haw river, in Alamance county. Of the vener- 
able owner of this plantation I might be pardoned if I 
were to give more than a cursory notice ; for, as a rep- 
resentative North-CaroUnian, and identified for nearly 
fifty years with all that is best in her annals and 
brightest in her reputation at home and abroad, no 
citizen in the State is regarded with more pride and 
veneration than Judge Ruffin. His claims to such 
distinction, however, are not to be fairly exhibited 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 41 

within the limits of such a sketch as this, though a 
reference to his public services will have a significant 
value in my present connection. 

Judge Ruffin was born in 1786, graduated at Prince- 
ton in 1806, was admitted to the bar in 1808, and 
from the year 1813, when he first represented Hills- 
boro in the House of Commons, to the present time, 
he has been prominently before the people of our 
State, holding the highest offices within her gift with 
a reputation for learning, ability, and integrity unsur- 
passed in our judicial annals. In the year 1852, after 
forty-five years of brilliant professional life, he resigned 
the Chief-Justiceship, and, amid the applause and re- 
gret of all classes of his fellow-citizens, retired to the 
quiet enjoyment of an ample estate acquired by his 
own eminent labors, and to the society of a numerous 
and interesting family. 

The judicial ermine which Judge Kuffin had worn 
for so many years not only shielded him from, but 
absolutely forbade, all active participation in party 
politics. He was, however, no uninterested observer 
of the current of events. He had been warmly op- 
posed to nullification in 1832, and was no believer in 
the rights of peaceable secession in 1860. In private 
circles, he combated both heresies with all that " in- 
exorable logic " which the London Times declared to 
be characteristic of his judicial opinions on the law of 
master and slave. He regarded the " sacred right of 
revolution" as the remedy for the redress of insup- 
portable grievances only. His opinions on these sub- 
jects were well known, when, in 1861, he was unex- 



42 THE LAST IS-INETT DAYS OF THE WAR. 

pectedly summoned by the Legislature to the head of 
the able delegation sent by the State to the Peace 
Convention at Washington. The reference to his 
course there, in the first of these sketches, renders it 
unnecessary to say more at present. Eminent states- 
men, now in high position in the national councils, can 
testify to his zealous and unremitting labors in that 
Convention to preserve and perpetuate the union of 
the States ; and none, doubtless, will do so more cor- 
dially than the venerable military chieftain* who, sixty 
years ago, was his friend and fellow-student in the 
office of an eminent lawyer in Petersburgh. 

Judge Ruffin returned home, dispirited and discour- 
aged by the temper displayed in the Convention, and 
still more by the proceedings of Congress. He still 
cherished hopes of reconciliation, however, when, with, 
out any canvass by or for him, he was elected to the 
Convention which, on the twentieth of May, 1861, 
adopted, by a unanimous vote, the Ordinance of Seces- 
sion. 

Having given that vote, he was not the man to 
shrink from the responsibilities it involved. In com- 
mon with every other respectable citizen in the State, 
he felt it his duty to encourage and animate our sol- 
diers, and to contribute liberally to their support and 
that of their families at home. His sons who v/ere 
able to bear arms were in the battle-field, and his 
family endured all the privations, and practiced all 
the self-denial common to our peojDle ; cheerfully dis- 
pensing with the luxuries of life, and laboring assidu- 

* General Wiiifield Scott. . 



THE LAST N^INETY DATS OF THE WAR. 43 

on sly for the relief of the array and the needy around 
them. 

Toward this most eminent and venerable citizen, 
whose name added weight to the dignity and influence 
of the whole country, what was the policy of Major- 
General Couch, encamped on his grounds, in the pleas- 
ant month of May? The plantation had already 
suffered from the depredations of Major - General 
Wheeler's cavalry of the Confederate army in its hur- 
ried transit ; but it was reserved for General Couch to 
give it the finishing touch. In a few words, ten miles 
of fencing were burned up, from one end of it to the 
other ; not an ear of corn, not a sheaf of wheat, not a 
bundle of fodder was left ; the army wagons were 
driven into the cultivated fields and orchards and 
meadows, and fires were made under the fruit-trees ; 
the sheep and hogs were shot down and left to rot on 
the ground, and several thousand horses and cattle 
were turned in on the wheat crops, then just heading. 
All the horses, seventeen in number, were carried off, 
and all the stock. An application for protection, and 
remonstrance against wanton damage, were met with 
indifference and contempt. 

Such being the course of one of General Sherman's 
subaltern ofiicers in time of peace, it is natural to turn 
to General Sherman himself, and inquire what was the 
example set by him in the progress of " the great 
march." He speaks for himself, and history will yet 
deliver an impartial verdict on such a summing up : 

" We consumed the corn and fodder in the region 
of country thirty miles on either side of a line from 



44 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 

Atlanta to Savannah ; also the sweet potatoes, hogs, 
sheep, and poultry, and carried off more than ten thou- 
sand horses and mules. I estimate the damage done 
to the State of Georgia at one hundred million dollars ; 
at least twenty million dollars of which inured to our 
advantage, and the remainder was simple waste and 
destruction." (Official Report.) 

Simple people, who understand nothing of military 
necessities, must be permitted to stand aghast at sucli 
a recital, and ask why was this ? To what end ? 
"What far-sighted policy dictated such wholesale havoc ? 
Lord Cornwallis — a foreigner — acting as a representa- 
tive of the mother country, seeking to reclaim her 
alienated children, we have seen everywhere anxious 
to conciliate, generously active to spare the country 
as much as possible, to preserve it for the interests of 
the mother country, and enforcing strict discipline in 
his army for the benefit of the service. What changes 
have been effected in the morale of war by nearly a 
century of Christian progress and civilization since 
Lord Cornwallis's day ? An army, in the middle of 
the nineteenth century, acting as the rejDresentative of 
sister States, seeking to reclaim " wayward sisters " — 
an army enlisted with the most extraordinary and 
emphatic avowals of purely philanthropic motives 
that the world has ever heard — an army marching 
through Avhat it professes to consider as its own 
COUNTRY — this army leaves a waste and burning track 
behind it of sixty miles' width ! 

" bloodiest picture in tlie book of Time ! 
Sarmatia fell unwept, witliout a crime ; 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 45 

Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe, 
Strength in lier arms, nor mercy in her woe ! 
Dropped from her nerveless grasj) the shattered spear. 
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career." 

The gay and airy pen-and-ink sketches, furnislied to 
the Northern press by " our own army correspond- 
ents," of the exploits of bummers, the jocular descrip- 
tions of treasure-seekers, the triumphant records of 
fire, famine, and slaughter, served up with elegant 
illustrations — wood-cuts in Harper's best style — and, 
if likely to be a trifle too glaring for even radical sen- 
sibilities, toned down and made to assume an air of 
retributive justice by a timely allusion to the " wretch- 
ed slaves" — these interesting reports, piquant and 
gayly-colored and suggestive though they were, were 
yet dull and tame and faded in comparison with the 
dismal reality. And all this " waste and destruction," 
it will be the verdict of posterity, even the calmed 
sense of the present generation will agree, was wholly 
uncalled for, wholly unnecessary, contributed in no 
way to the prosperous and speedy termination of the 
war, but added materially to the losses by the war of 
the General Government, lit up the fires of hatred in 
many a hitherto loyal Southern breast, brutalized and 
demoralized the whole Federal army, and was in short 
inexcusable in every aspect except upon the determin- 
ation to exterminate the Southern people. We knew 
that there were men in the Church and in the State 
who openly avowed such aspirations ; but as to the 
great body of the sober, intelligent, and conscientious 
Northern people, we do them the justice to believe 



46 THE LAST XIXETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

that when the history of the war at the South comes 
to be truthfully written, they will receive its records 
with incredulity ; and when belief is compelled, will 
turn from them shuddering. 

The smoke of burning Columbia, and of the fair 
villages and countless plantations that lay in the route, 
where, for hundreds of miles, many a house was left 
blazing, and not a jDanel of fence was to be seen, rolled 
slowly up our sky ; and panic-stricken refugees, home- 
less and penniless, brought every day fresh tales of 
havoc and ruin. By the eleventh of March, General 
Sherman was in possession of Fayetteville, in our own 
State. 

The coincidences in the plan, and the contrasts in 
the mode of conducting the campaigns of Lord Corn- 
wallis and General Sherman, are striking, and sugges- 
tive to the student of history. Cornwallis hesitated 
whether to strike North-Carolina in the heart of the 
whig settlements — between the Yadkin and the Ca- 
tawba — or enter among his friends between the Pedee 
and Cape Fear, and ultimately decided to accomplish 
both purposes. In January, 1781, Sir James Henry 
Craig captured Wilmington, and on the nineteenth of 
February, Lord Cornwallis forced the passage of the 
Catawba at Beattie's Ford. General Schofield had 
possession of Wilmington when General Sherman, 
i^\^\d\-\g- a feint at Charlotte, captured Fayetteville. 

In Lord Cornwallis's progress through Carolina he 
met with'cvery thing to exasj^erate him in the conduct 
of the people. On his first entrance into Charlotte, 
September, 1780, the whole British army was actually 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 47 

Leld at bay for half an hour by a body of about one 
hundred and fifty militia, and a few volunteers, com- 
manded by Major Josei^h Graham, posted behind the 
court-house and houses, and commanded by Colonel 
Davie, who was " determined to give his lordship 
an earnest of what he might expect in the State." 
Three separate charges of the British Legion were re- 
pulsed by this handful of devoted men, who retired at 
last on being flanked by the infantry, in perfect order, 
with but a loss of eleven killed and wounded, while 
the British admitted a loss of forty-three killed and 
wounded. " When the Legion was afterward re- 
proached for cowardice in sufiering such a check from 
so small a detail of militia, they excused themselves 
by saying that the confidence with which the Ameri- 
cans behaved made them aj^prehend an ambuscade, for 
surely nothin'g of that sort was to be expected in an 
open village at mid-day." I have by me as I write, in 
Colonel Davie's own handwriting, his account of " the 
affair at Charlotte," as he modestly styles it, and it is 
well worth comparing with Tarleton's and Stedman's 
report of the same. A more brilliant and audacious 
exploit was not performed during the whole Revolu- 
tionary war. A series of such annoyances, heading 
and dogging the British army at every step all through 
tliat country, gained for Charlotte the well-earned and 
enviable sobriquet of " The Hornets' Nest," and the 
commander-in-chief paid the whole region the compli- 
ment of declaring that " Mecklenburg and Rowan were 
the two most rebellious counties in America." 

Yet Cornwallis burned no houses here — plundered 



48 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE AVAE. 

no plantations. His aim was very apparently to con- 
ciliate if possible, to teach the people to look to him 
for protection and a good government. To be sm-e, 
he had not enjoyed the benefit of a "West-Point mili- 
tary training — he was evidently in profound ignorance 
of the advantages to be derived from the principle of 
" smashing things generally," as he passed along ; but 
he was, nevertheless, (perhaps in consequence,) a gen- 
tleman^ and an accomplished statesman, as well as a 
consummate soldier. He well knew — 

" wlio overcomes 

By force, hatli overcome but half his foe." . 

As to Fayetteville, and her lot in these later days, 
no such slight sketch as this will suffice for the story. 
Perhaps no town in the South had surpassed her in 
the ardor and liberality with which (after secession 
had become the law of the State) she supported the 
war. She gave her bravest sons ;.her best blood was 
poured out' like water in the cause of the South, and 
then she gave of her substance. The grace of giving 
had surely been bestowed upon the people of Cum- 
berland without measure, for there seemed literally 
no end to their liberality. For four years the columns 
of their jiapers had exhibited an almost weekly list of 
donations, that in number and value would have done 
infinite credit to a much wealthier community. The 
ladies, as usual, were especially active and indefatiga- 
ble. Where, indeed, in all the sunny South were the v 
not ? And why should they not have been ? They 
were working for their fathers, husbands, sons, bro- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 49 

tliers, and lovers, and for principles which these be- 
loved ones had instructed them to cherish. Would it 
not have been culpable in the last degree for the wo- 
men of the country to have remained even indifferent 
to a cause (good or bad) for which the men were laying 
down their lives ? Why should they not take joyfully 
all privations and all hardships, for the sake of these, 
and soothe the agony of bereavement with the belief 
that they who needed their cares no longer, lying 
rolled in their bloody blankets in the bosom of Vir- 
ginia, or on the fatal hills of Pennsylvania, had died 
in a good cause and were resting in honored graves ? 
Who shall question the course of the women of the 
South in this war, or dare to undervalue their lofty 
heroism and fortitude, unsurpassed in story or in song ? 
When I forget you, O ye daughters of my country ! 
your labors of love, your charity, faith, and patience, 
all through the dark and bloody day, lighting up the 
gloom of war with the tender graces of woman's de- 
votion and self-denial, and now, in even darker hours, 
your energy and cheerful submission in toil and pov- 
erty and humiliation — when I cease to do homage to 
your virtues, and to your excellences, may my right 
hand forget its cunning and my voice be silent in the 
dust! 

The people of Fayetteville supported the Confeder- 
ate Government warmly to the last gasp, upon the 
principle that united^ the South might stand — divided^ 
she certainly would fall. After the failure of the 
Peace Commission, the citizens met and passed vigor- 
ous war resolutions, calling on all classes to rally once 



50 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

more in self-defense — a proceeding which did more 
credit to their zeal than to their ability to read the 
signs of the times ; for, rally or no rally, the fate of 
the Confederacy was already written on the wall. 

All these antecedents doubtless conspired to give 
Fayetteville a bad character in the opinion of our 
ISTorthern brethren, who, for their part, were bent on 
peace-making ; and accordingly, when the hour and 
the man arrived, on the eleventh of March, 1865, she 
found she must pay the penalty. A skirmish took 
place in the streets between General Sherman's ad- 
vanced-guard and a part of General Hampton's cav- 
alry, which covered the retreat of Hardee's division 
across the Cape Fear. This, no doubt, increased the 
exasperation of feeling toward this " nest of rebels," 
and the determination to put a check to all future 
operations there in behalf of the cause. In less than 
two hours after the entrance of the Federal forces, so 
adroitly had every house in the town and its suburbs 
been rans^^cked and plundered, that it may be doubted 
if all Fayetteville, the next day, could have contrib- 
uted two whole shirts or a bushel of meal to the relief 
of the Confederate army. The incidents of that most 
memorable day, and for several days succeeding, would 
fill (and icill fill) a volume; and as for the nights, they 
were illuminated by the glare of blazing houses all 
through the pine groves for several miles around Fay- 
etteville. One of the first of the " soldiers in blue " 
who entered the town, accosted in the street a most 
distinguished and venerable clergyman, Rev. William 
Hooper, D.D., LL.D., more than seventy years of age 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 51 

— tlie grandson of one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence — and who had suffered reproach for 
his adherence to the Union, and whose very appear- 
ance should have challenged respect and deference — 
accosted him as a " d — d rebel," and putting a pistol to 
his head, demanded and carried off his watch and purse. 

Southerners can not write calmly of such scenes yet. 
Their houses were turned into seraglios, every port- 
able article of value, plate, china and glass-ware, pro- 
visions and books were carried off, and the remainder 
destroyed ; hundreds of carriages and vehicles of all 
kinds were burned in piles ; where houses were iso- 
lated they were burned ; women were grossly insulted, 
and robbed of clothing and jewelry; nor were darker 
and nameless tragedies wanting in lonely situations. 
No ; they hardly dare trust themselves to think of 
these things. "That way lies madness." But the true 
story of " The Gkeat March " will yet be written. 

Not the least remarkable of all these noble strate- 
gical operations was the fact that black and white 
suffered alike. Nothing more strikingly evinces the 
entire demoralization and want of honor that pre- 
vailed. The negro whom they came to liberate they 
afterward plundered ; his cabin was stripped of his lit- 
tle valuables, as Avell as his master's house of its luxu- 
ries ; his humble silver watch was seized, as well as 
the gentleman's gold repeater. This policy is also 
modern, and due to the enlightenment of the nine< 
teenth century. A good many years ago, a grand 
liberation of slaves took place, where the leaders and 
deliverer sanctioned the " spoiling of the Egyptians," 



52 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

but they hardly picked the jDOckets of the freedmeu 
afterward. 

During the month of March our central counties 
were traversed by straggling bodies of Confederate 
soldiers, fragments of the once powerful army of Ten- 
nessee, hurrying down toward Raleigh to concentrate 
under General Johnston once more, in the vain hope 
of being able yet to effect something. Tennesseeans, 
Texans, Georgians, Alabamians, men who had been in 
every fight in the West, from Corinth to Perrysville, 
from Perrysville to Atlanta — men who had left pleas- 
ant homes, wives and children, many of whom they 
knew were without a house to shelter them ; 

" For the blackness of ashes marked where it stood, 
And a wild motlier's scream o'er her famishing brood !" 

The whole population of our town poured out to see 
these war-worn men ; to cheer them ; to feed and shel- 
ter them. The little children gathered handfuls of 
the early daffodils " that take the winds of March with 
beauty," and flung to them. What we had to eat w( 
gave them, day after day. Repeatedly the whole 
of a family dinner was taken from the table and car- 
ried out to the street, the children joyfully assisting. 
They were our soldiers — our own brave boys. The 
cause w^as desperate, we knew — the war was nearly 
over — our delusions were at an end ; but while we 
had it, our last loaf to our soldiers — a cheer, and a 
blessing, with dim eyes, as they rode away. 



CHAPTER ly. 

LAWS OF WAK — "RIGHT TO FORAGE OLDER THAK HISTORY" 
— XENOPHON — KENT [ON INTERNATIONAL LAW-— HALLECK'S 
AUTHORITY VERSUS SHERMAN'S THEORY AND PRACTICE — 
PRESIDENT WOOLSEY — LETTER OF BISHOP ATKINSON. 

In the preceding chapter, attention was drawn to 
the striking contrast between the policy pursued by 
General Sherman toward the inhabitants of the country 
he was invading, and that of his illustrious predecessor 
in the days of the Revolution. I think there can be 
but little doubt as to which of these distinguished 
commanders is entitled to most credit on the score of 
hiimanit}/. General Sherman's friends, considering 
that he who conducts a campaign to a successful issue 
may well afford to disregard the means to the desired 
end, will doubtless support his policy; for Avhere 
Cornwallis failed, he succeeded, and succeeded bril- 
liantly. Lord Cornwallis, however, in the general be- 
nevolence of his character — tempering, as far as was 
practicable, the severities of war with forbearance and 
generosity — is more justly entitled to stand by the 
side of Washington than any other military com- 
mander of his age. As to his failure, time has shown 
that it was well for both countries that he did fail; 
and his memory is crowned with more unfading laurels 



54 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

than the title of mere conqueror could have conferred. 
Self-control, discij^line, and magnanimous consideration 
for the weak and the defenseless are better than burn- 
ing houses and a devastated country. 

If, however, it still be asserted that humanity is ne- 
cessarily no part of a soldier's duty, and that his busi- 
ness is to win the fight, no matter how, an appeal to 
the authorities on such points, recognized in all civil- 
ized nations, will show that the law is otherwise laid 
down. 

General Sherman begins his famous letter to General 
Hampton with the assertion that " the right to forage 
is older than history." What was the precise charac- 
ter of this right among barbarians in the morning twi- 
light of civilization it may hardly be worth our while 
to inquire. But we have clear historic evidence that, 
long before the coming of the Prince of Peace, in the 
earliest ages of profane history, among civilized nations 
the " right to forage " did not mean a right to indis- 
criminate pillage, *' waste, and destruction " — destruc- 
tion extending not only to the carrying off of the 
cattle necessary in farming operations, but to the agri- 
cultural tools and implements of every description. 
More than twenty centuries ago, Xenophon, at the 
head of the Ten Thousand, accomplished his famous 
retreat from Babylon to the sea. The incidents of 
that great march are given by himself in a narrative, 
whose modesty, spirit, and elegance have charmed all 
subsequent ages. His views as to the right to forage 
are clearly stated in the following passage, taken from 
Kenfs Go7mnentafies on International Law — an 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 55 

authority tliat was studied by General Sherman at 
West-Point, and was taught by him when Superin- 
tendent of the Military Academy of Louisiana. Treat- 
ing of plunder on land, depredations upon private 
property, etc., he says; 

" Such conduct has been condemned in all ages by 
the wise and virtuous, and it is usually punished se- 
verely by those commanders of disciplined troops who 
have studied war as a science, and are animated by a 
sense of duty or the love of fame. We may infer the 
opinion of Xenophon on this subject, (and he was a 
warrior as well as a philosopher,) when he states, in 
the Cyropc^dia^ that Cyrus of Persia gave orders to 
his army, xohen marching upon the enemy's borders^ 
not to disturb the cultivators of the soil ; and there 
have been such ordinances in modern times for the 
protection of innocent and pacific pursuits. If the 
conqueror goes beyond these limits wantonly, or when 
it is not clearly indispensable to the just purposes of 
war, and seizes private property of pacific persons for 
the sake of gain, and destroys private dAvellings, or 
public edifices devoted to civil purposes only; or 
makes war upon monuments of art, and models of 
taste, he violates the modern usages of war, and is 
sure to meet with indignant resentment, and to be 
held up to the general scorn and detestation of tlie 
world." (Part I. Sec. 5.) 

To this authority may be added a still more modern 
and binding exposition of the laws of war. HallecJc's 
International Laio and Laws of Wcrr, written and 
published in 1861 by an officer of the Government, and 



56 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

for a time a major-general and commander-in-chief of 
the Federal army, may be considered as the latest and 
ablest summary of the best authorities on these subjects. 
It was in the hands of General Sherman and his officers, 
and its decisions may be regarded as final. Nothing 
can be more explicit or more emphatic than the follow- 
ing extracts. First, as to general right of war in an 
enemy's property (on land) : 

" The general theory of war is, as heretofore stated, 
that all private property may be taken by the con- 
queror ; and such was the ancient practice. But the 
modern usage is, not to touch private- property on 
land without making compensation, except in certain 
sj^ecified cases. These excej^tions may be stated under 
three general heads: 1st. Confiscations or seizures by 
way of penalty for military ofiTenses; 2d. Forced con- 
tributions for the support of the invading army, or as 
an indemnity for the expenses of maintaining order, 
and affording protection to the conquered inhabitants ; 
and 3d. Property taken on the field of battle, or in 
storming a fortress or town. 

" In the first place, we may seize upon private pro- 
l^erty, by way of penalty for the illegal acts of indi- 
viduals, or of the community to which they belong. 
Thus, if an individual be guilty of conduct in violation 
of the laws of war, we may seize and confiscate the 
private property of the offender. So, also, if the offense 
attach itself to a particular community or toAvn, all 
the individuals of that community or town are liable 
to punishment ; and- we may seize upon their proj^erty, 
or levy upon them a retaliatory contribution by Way 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 57 

of penalty. "When, however, we can discover and 
secure the individuals so offending, it is more just to 
inflict the punishment on them only ; but it is a general 
law of war that communities are accountable for the 
acts of their individual members. If these individuals 
are not given up, or can not be discovered, it is usual 
to impose a contribution upon the civil authorities of 
the place where the offense is committed ; and these 
authorities raise the ainount of the contribution -by a 
tax levied on their constituents." (Chaj). 19, pages 
457, 458.) 

If the town of Fayetteville had in any way become 
peculiarly obnoxious to the Federal army, one would 
have thought that a glance into Halleck might have 
satisfied the commanding officers as to their rights and 
duties there on the eleventh of March, 1865. Not a 
word here of plunder, pillage, or arson. There can be 
no doubt that Fayetteville would have gladly com- 
pounded for her offenses by a tax of almost any possible 
amount, levied and collected in a lawful and civilized 
way, in preference to her actual experiences. 

Next, as to right of forage, etc. : 

"In the second place, we have a right to make the 
enemy's country contribute to the expenses of the war. 
Troops in the enemy's country maybe subsisted either 
by regular magazines, by forced requisitions, or by au- 
thorized pillage. It is not always politic, or even 
possible, to provide regular magazines for the entire 
supply of an army during the active operations of a 
campaign. When this can not be done, the general is 
obliged either to resort to military requisitions, or to 



58 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAB. 

intrust their subsistence to the troops themselves. The 
inevitable consequences of the latter system are uni- 
versal pillage, and a total relaxation of discipline : the 
loss of private property, and the violation of individ- 
ual rights, are usually followed by the massacre of 
straggling j^arties; and the ordinary peaceful and 
7ion-conihaia7it inhabitants are converted into hitter 
and implacable e^iemies. The system is, therefore, re- 
garded as both impolitic and Unjust, and is coming 
into o-eneral disuse among; the more civilized nations 
— at least for the support of the main army. In case 
of small detachments, where great rapidity of motion 
is requisite, it sometimes becomes necessary for the 
troops to procure their subsistence wherever they can. 
In such a case, the seizure of private property becomes 
a necessary consequence of the military operations, 
and is, therefore, unavoidable. Other cases of similar 
character might be mentioned. But even in most of 
these special and extreme cases, provisions might be 
made for subsequently compensating the owners for 
the loss of their property ." (Page 459.) 

" The evils resulting from irregular requisitions, and 
foraging for the ordinary supplies of an army, are so 
very great, and so generally admitted, that it has be- 
come a recognized maxim of war, that the command- 
ing officer who permits indiscriminate pillage, and 
allows the taking of private property without a strict 
accountability, whether he be engaged m defensive or 
offensive operations, fails in his duty to his own gov- 
ernment, and violates the usages of modern warfare. 
It is sometimes alleged, in excuse for such conduct, 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 59 

that the general is unable to restrain his troops; but 
in the eye of the law there is no excuse ; for he who 
can not preseme order in his army has no right to 
command it. In collecting military contributions, 
trustworthy troops should be sent with the foragers, 
to prevent them from engaging in irregular and unau- 
thorized pillage; and the party should always be ac- 
companied by officers of the staif and administrative 
corps, to see to the proper execution of the orders, and 
to rejDort any irregularities on the part of the troops. 
In case any corps should engage in unauthorized pil- 
lage, due restitution should be made to the inhabitants, 
and the expenses of such restitution deducted from 
the pay and allowances of the corps by which such 
excess is committed. But modify and restrict it as 
you will, the system of subsisting armies on the private 
property of an enemy's subjects without compensation 
is very objectionable, and almost inevitably leads to 
cruel and disastrous results. There is, therefore, very 
seldom a sufficient reason for resorting to it." (Chap. 
19, page 451.) 

" While there is some uncertainty as to the exact 
limit fixed by the voluntary law of nations to our 
right to appropriate to our own use the property of an 
enemy, or to subject it to military contributions, there 
is no doid)t lohatever respecting its loaste and useless 
destructiooi. This is forbidden alike by the law of na- 
ture and the rules of war. There are numerous instances 
in military history where whole districts of country 
have been totally ravaged and laid waste. Such ope- 
rations have sometimes been defended on the ground 



60 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

of necessity, or as a means of preventing greater evils. 
* Such violent remedies,' says Vattel, * are to be spar- 
ingly applied : there must be reasons of suitable im- 
portance to justify the use of them. He who does the 
like in an enemy's country when impelled by no neces- 
sity, or induced by feeble reasons, becomes the scourge 
of mankind.' 

" The general rule by which we should regulate our 
conduct toward an enemy is that of moderation ; and 
on no occasion shoidd toe unnecessarily destroy his 
property. ' The pillage and destruction of towns,' 
says Yattel, 'the devastation of the open country, 
ravaging, and setting fire to houses, are measures no 
less odious and detestable on every occasion when 
they are evidently jout in practice without absolute 
necessity, or at least very cogent reasons. But as the 
perpetrators of such outrageous deeds might attempt 
to palliate them, under pretext of deservedly punish- 
ing the enemy, be it here observed that the natural 
and voluntary law of nations does not allow us to in< 
flict such punishments, except for enormous offenses 
against the law of nations ; and even then it is glori' 
ous to listen to the voice of humanity and clemency, 
when rigor is not absolutely necessary.' " (Pages 455 
-456.) 

To these unimpeachable decisions I can not refrain 
from adding that of President Woolsey, of Yale Col- 
lege. In his Introduction to the Study of Internation- 
al Law, sec. 130, pp. 304-5, he says : " The property, 
movable and immovable, of private persons in an in- 
vaded country is to remain uninjured. But if the 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR, 61 

wants of the hostile army require, it may be taken by 
authorized persons at a fair value ; but marauding 
must be checked by discipline and penalties." And 
even as to " permissible requisitions," which Welling- 
ton regarded as iniquitous, and opposed as " likely to 
injure those icJio resorted to tliem^^ President Woolsey 
adds that they " are demoralizing ; they arouse the 
avarice of officers, and leave a sting in the memory of 
oppressed nations P 

It is this sting^ left in the breasts of the Southern 
people, these bitter hatreds aroused by the indiscrim- 
inate and licensed pillage to which they were subject- 
ed, which are more to be deprecated than any conse- 
quence of the blood shed in fair and open fight during 
the war. Hard blows do not necessarily make bad 
blood between generous foes. It is the ungenerous 
policy of the exulting conqueror that adds poison to 
the bleeding wounds. 

From a mass of agreeing testimony, as to the con- 
duct of the Federal troops on their entrance into our 
State, I seleot the following letter from a clergyman 
of distinction, the authorized head of one of the most 
influential denominations in the State ; a man of na- 
tional reputation for the learning, ability, and piety 
with which he adorns his high office in the Church of 
God. Let it be carefully read, and its calm and mod- 
erate tone be fairly estimated and appreciated : 

. . . . " I am altogether indisposed to obtrude 
myself on the public, and especially to bring before it 
complaints of personal grievance ; but it seemed to me 



62 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAB. 

important, not only for tlie interests of justice, but of 
humanity, that the truth should be declared concern- 
ing the mode in which the late civil war was carried 
on, and I did not see that I was exempted from this 
duty rather than any one else who had personal know- 
ledge of facts bearing on that subject. For this rea- 
son I made the statement to my Convention which 
you allude to, and for the same reason I have, after 
some hesitation, felt bound to give you the information 
you ask. 

" When General Sherman was moving on Cheraw, 
in South-Carolina, one corps of his army, under Gen- 
eral Slocum, I believe, advanced in a parallel line nortli 
of him, and extended into this State. Some companies 
of Kilpatrick's cavalry attached to this corps came on 
Friday, third March, to Wadesboro, in Anson county, 
where I was then residing. As their approach was 
known, many persons thought it best to withdraw 
from the place before the cavalry entered it ; but I de- 
termined to remain, as I could not remove my family, 
and I did not suppose that I would suffer any serious 
injury. I saw the troops galloping in, and sat down 
quietly to my books, reading, having asked the other 
members of my family to remain in a room in the rear 
of the building. After a time a soldier knocked at 
the door, which I opened. He at once, with many 
oaths, demanded my watch, which I refused to give 
him. He then drew a pistol and presented it at me, 
and threatened to shoot me immediately if I did not 
surrender it. I still refused, and, the altercation be- 
coming loud, my wife heard it, ran into the room and 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 63 

earnestly besought me to give it up, which I then did. 
Having secured this, he demanded money, but as we 
had none but Confederate, he would not take that. 
He then proceeded to rifle our trunks and drawers, 
took some of my clothes from these, and my wife's 
jewelry ; but he would have nothing to do with heavy 
articles as, fortunately, he had no means of carrying 
them ofi". He then left the house, and I went in search 
of his officers to ask them to compel him to return what 
he had taken from me. This might seem a hopeless 
eflbrt ; for the same game had been played in every 
house in the town where there seemed to be any thing 
worth taking. However, in my case, the officers pro- 
mised, if I could identify the robber, to compel him to 
make restitution. The men, accordingly, were drawn 
up in line, and tlfeir commander and I went along it 
examining their countenances, but my acquaintance 
was not among them. It turned out that he had gone 
from my house to that of a neighbor, to carry on the 
same work, and during my absence had returned to 
my house, taken a horse from the stable, and then 
moved off" to his camp at some miles' distance. The 
next day other bands visited us, taking groceries from 
us and demanding watches and money. They broke 
open the storehouses in the village ; and as at one of 
these I had some tierces of china and boxes of books, 
these they knocked to pieces, breaking the china, of 
course, and scattering the books, but not carrying 
them ofi", as they probably did not much value them, 
and had, fortunately, no wagons. I finally recovered 
nearly all of them. Another part of Sherman's army, 



64 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OE THE WAR. 

in their march through Richmond county, passed by- 
two raib-oad stations where I had a piano and other 
furniture, Avhich they destroyed ; and also at Fayette- 
ville I had furniture at the house of a friend, which 
shared the fate of his. Yet I was among those who 
suffered comparatively lightly. Where the army went 
with its wagons, they swept the country of ahnost 
every thing of vaUie that was portable. In some in- 
stances defenseless men were killed for plunder. A 
Mr. James C. Bennet, one of the oldest and wealthiest 
men in Anson county, was shot at the door of his own 
house because he did not give up his watch and money, 
which had been previously taken from him by another 
party. 

" These and the like atrocities ought to be known ; 
for even men who do not much fearlhe judgments of 
God, are kept somewhat in awe by the apprehension 
of the sentence of the civilized world and of posterity. 

" In conclusion, I must say that I wish as little re- 
ference to be made to me, and the injuries done me, as 
is consistent with the faithful narrative which you 
have undertaken to give of the last ninety days of the 
war in North-Carolina. 

" I remain, very truly and respectfully yours, 
• "Thomas Atkinson." 

Bishop Atkinson, it is well known, was the first to 
set the example, after the war was closed, of leading 
his church half-way to reiinite the church connection 
North and South. An example of Christian charity, 
meekness, and forbearance most worthy of our admira- 
tion and imitation. 



CHAPTER V. 

LORD CORNWALLIS rS" FATETTEVILLE — A YOUNG LADY'S INTEH- 
VIEW TVITH HIM — HOW HE TREATED HER — HOW SHERMAN'S 
MEN TREATED HER GRANDSON — "THE STORY OP THE GREAT 
march" — MAJOR NICHOLS AND THE "QUADROON GIRLS "— 
SUCH IS NOT WAR — WHY THESE THINGS ARE RECORDED — 
CONFEDERATE CONCENTlftATION IN NORTH-CAROLINA — A SAD 
STORY. 

When Lord Cornwallis was on his marcli to Wil- 
mington, after the battle of Guilford Court-House, 
passing by the residence of a planter near Cross Creek, 
(now Fayetteville,) the army halted. The young mis- 
tress of the mansion, a gay and very beautiful matron 
of eighteen, with the impulsive curiosity of a child, 
ran to her front piazza to gaze at the pageant. Some 
officers dismounting approached the house. She ad- 
dressed one of the foremost, and begged that he would 
point out to her Lord Cornwallis, if he w^as there, for 
" she wished to see a lord." " Madam," said the gen- 
tleman, removing his hat, "I am Lord Cornwallis." 
Then with the formal courtesy of the day he led her 
into the house, giving to the frightened family every 
assurance of protection. With the high breeding of a 
gentleman and the frankness of a soldier, he won all 



GQ THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

hearts during his stay, from the venerable grandmother 
in her chair to the gay girl who had first accosted 
him. While the army remained, not an article was 
disturbed on the plantation, though, as he himself 
warned them, there were stragglers in his wake whom 
he could not detect, and who failed not to do what 
mischief they could in the way of plundering, after he 
had passed. 'Tis eighty-four years ago, and that 
blooming girl's granddaughters tell the story witli 
grateful regard for the memory of the noble English- 
man, who never forgot what was due to a defenseless 
homestead, and who well deserves to be held in ad- 
miration by woman.* 

How tender the light that plays round this great 
captain's memory ! Smarting from recent virtual de- 
feat, hurrying through a hostile country, disappointed 
in his expectations of receiving relief and reenforce- 
ment in this very neighborhood of Cross Creek, he is 
master of himself and of his army through all reverses 
of fortune — gentle and considerate in the midst o^ ad- 
versity. 

The recollections of that young Southern matron's 
grandson, Charles B. Mallett, Esq., of the great army 
passing so lately over the very same ground, and of 
their visit to his plantation, afford matter for curious 
consideration and comparison. These are his reminis- 
cences : 

" The china and glass-ware were all carried out of 

* His own beloved young wife, dying of a tooken heart on the separation 
caused by his coming to America, " directed on her death-bed that a thorn-tree 
Rhould be planted on her grave, as nearly as possible over her heart, significant 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 67 

the house by the Federal soldiers, and deliberately- 
smashed in the yard. The furniture — piano, beds, 
tables, bureaus — were all cut to pieces with axes ; 
the jDantries and smoke-houses were stripped of their 
contents ; the negro houses were all plundered ; the 
poultry, cows, horses, etc., were shot down and car- 
ried off; and then, after all this, the houses were all 
fired and burned to the ground. The cotton factory 
belonging to the family was also burned, as were six 
others in the neighborhood of Fayetteville." 

I have also the statement of a near neighbor of this 
gentleman^ John M. Rose, Esq., condensed as follows: 

" The Federal soldiers searched my house from gar- 
ret to cellar, and plundered it of every thing portable ; 
took all my provisions, emptied the pantries of all 
stores, and did not leave me a mouthful of any kind 
of supplies for one meal's victuals. They took all 
my clothing, even the hat off my head, and the shoes 
and pants from my person ; took most of my wife's 
and children's clothing, all of our bedding; destroyed 
my furniture, and robbed all my negroes. At leaving 
they set fire to my fences, out-houses, and dwelling, 
w^hich, fortunately, I was able to extinguish. The re- 
mains of a dozen slaughtered cattle were left in my 
yard. (Nine dwellings were burned to the ground in 
this neighborhood. Four gentlemen, whose names are 
given, were hung up by the neck till nearly dead, tq 
force them to tell where valuables Avere hidden. One 



of the sorrow that destroyed her life. Her request was complied with, and that 
thorn-tree is still living," (1S5T.)— The Cornwallis Correspondence, chap. i. p. 14. 



68 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

was sliot in liis own house, and died soon after.) The 
yard and lot were searched, and all my money, and 
that of several companies which I represent, was found 
and taken. All my stocks and bonds were likewise 
carried off. My wagon, and garden, and lot imple- 
ments were all burned in my yard. The property 
taken from another family — the jewelry, plate, money, 
etc. — was estimated to be worth not less than twenty- 
five thousand dollars. Hundreds of pleasure vehicles 
in the town were either wantonly burned in parcels 
and separately, or carried off with the army. Houses 
in the suburbs and vicinity suffered more severely than 
those in the town. ISTo private dwellings in the town 
were burned, and after the guards were placed the 
pillage ceased. The misfortune was, that the guards 
were not j^laced till the houses had been sacked." 

I have other statements, but perhaps these are suffi- 
cient for my present ■j)»arpose.* I have given none that 
can not be verified if necessary, though they differ 
widely from those of a book lately published at the 
North, entitled The Story of the Great March, and 
which is doubtless regarded there as of unquestionable 
authority. On page 251 I observe it is stated, "Pri- 
vate property in Fayetteville has been respected to a 
degree which is remarkable ;" and on page 253 : " The 

* The writer might have mentioned that J. P. McLean was hung up by the neck 
three times and shot at once, to make him disclose hidden valuables. W. T. Home, 
Jesse Hawley, and Alexander McAuthor, were all hung up until nearly dead. John 
Waddill was shot down and killed in his own house. The country residences of 
C. T. Haigh, J. C. Haigh, Archibald Graham, and W. T. Home, were all burned 
within a short distance of one another ; this was all in one neighborhood. Dr. 
Hicks, of Duplin, was hung until nearly dead, and will probably never recover 
So it was elsewhere. — Editor. 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 69 

eity of Fayetteville was offensively rebellious, and it 
has been a matter of surprise that our soldiers, who 
are quick to understand the distinction, have not made 
the citizens feel it in one way or another." It is just 
possible that Major Nichols did not know the truth ; 
that, being very evidently of an easy and credulous 
temper, and too busy making up his little book for 
sale, he allowed himself to be imposed upon by wicked 
jokers. Let us all believe that he knew nothing of 
the robberies that were going on. He was evidently 
hard of hearing, besides ; for he says, page 240, " I 
have yet to hear of a single outrage offered to a wo- 
man by a soldier of our army." Let us all believe 
that he was too deeply interested in his interviews 
with the handsome " quadroon family," mentioned on 
page 237, to know what was going on among the 
whites. By the way, it would seem these quadroon 
girls were too deep for him too. His reported con- 
versation with the family is a very amusing tissue of 
blunders and misrepresentation. Foot-notes should 
certainly accompany the thirtieth edition, and in par- 
ticular it should be stated of these " intelligent quad- 
roons," not one of whom was ever named Hannah, and 
not one of any name was ever sold, that not one of 
them has yet left the lot of their old master, or ex- 
pressed a wish to leave. Major Nichols does not 
seem to know much ; but he probably knows this, 
that it was not for want of asking that these hand- 
some quadroons did not go. 

Enough of such disclosures and of such scenes. If 
it be asked why these have been presented, and why 



YO THE LAST JJ^INETY DATS OF THE "WAR. 

I seek to j)rolong these painful memories, and to keep 
alive the remembrances that ought rather to slumber 
and be forgotten with the dead past, let me reply that 
it is deliberately, and of set pm-pose, that I sketch 
these outlines of a great tragedy for our Northern 
friends to ponder. The South has suffered ; that they 
admit in general terms, and add, " Such is war.'''' I 
desire to call their attention to the fact that such is 
NOT war, as their own standards declare; that the 
career of the grand army in the Great March, brilliant 
as was the design, masterly as was the execution, and 
triumphant as was the issue, is yet, in its details, a 
story of which they have no reason to be proud, and 
which, when truly told, if there be one spark of gener- 
osity, one drop of the milk of human kindness in North- 
ern breasts, should turn their bitterness toward the 
South into tender pity, their exultation over her into 
a manly regret and remorse. They do not know — 
they never will know unless Southerners themselves 
shall tell the mournful story — what the sword hath 
done in her fair fields and her pleasant places. Their 
triumphant stories and war-lyrics are not faithful ex- 
positors of the woe and ruin wrought upon a defense- 
less people. When the sounds of conflict have finally 
died away, I would fain see the calmed senses of a 
great people who, having fairly won the figbt, can 
afford to be magnanimous, take in clearly the situation 
of the whole Southern country, and " repent thein for 
their brother Benjamin, and come to the house of God, 
and weep sore for their brother, and say, O Lord God, 
why is this come to pass that there should be to-day 
one tribe lacking^ in Israel ?" 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 71 

Thousands of delicate women, bred up in affluence, 
are now bravely working with their hands for their 
daily bread ; many in old age, and alone in the world, 
are bereft of all their earthly possessions. Thousands 
of families are absolutely penniless, who have never 
before known a want ungratified. Let me not be mis- 
taken to represent Southerners as shrinking from work, 
or ignobly bewailing the loss of luxury and ease. 
The dignity and the " perennial nobleness" of labor 
were never more fairly asserted than among us now, 
and I have never seen, or read, or heard of a braver 
acceptance of the situation, a more cheerful submission 
to God's will, or a more spirited application to unac- 
customed toils and duties, than are exhibited here 
this day. Nobody is ashamed of himself, or ashamed 
of his position, or of his necessities. What the 
South wants is not charity — charity as an alms — but 
generosity ; that generosity which forbears reproachy 
or insult, or gay and clamorous exultation, but which 
silently clears the way of all difficulties, and lends an 
arm to a fainting, wounded brother; that says, "There 
must be an inheritance for them that be escaped of 
Benjamin." 

It is for this that I present these sketches, which, 
but for some good to be accomplished by them, would 
better have never been- written. Where wrongs can 
not be redressed, or their recital be made available for 
good, they would far better be buried in oblivion, the 
wrong-doer and the sufferer alike awaiting in dread 
repose the final award of the Great Tribunal. 

How shall the South begin her new life? How, 



12 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

disfranchised and denied her civil rights, shall she start 
the wheels of enterprise and business that shall bring 
work and bread to her plundered, penniless peoj^le ? 
How shall her widows and orphans be fed, her schools 
and colleges be supported, her churches be maintained, 
unless her rights and liberties be regained — unless 
every effort be made to give her wounds repose, and 
restore health and energy to her paralyzed and shat- 
tered frame ? Is there any precedent in history of a 
war that ended with the freeing not only from all obli- 
gation to labor, but from all disposition to labor, of all 
the operatives of the conquered country ? Is not the 
social status of the 'South at present without a paral- 
lel ? Just emerging from an exhausting and devastat- 
ing war, the country might well be crippled and pov- 
erty-stricken ; but with three or four millions of en- 
franchised slaves, a population that is even now hast- 
ening to inaugurate the worst evils of insubordination, 
idleness, and pauperism among us, what hope for us 
unless the ]N"orthern sense of justice can be aroused 
into speedy action ! 

While General Sherman's wagons were wallowing 
in the mud between Fayetteville and Goldsboro, vain 
attempts were being made in Raleigh to galvanize 
into some show of action and strength the fragments 
of an army that were concentrating there. General 
Lee's desperate situation in Virginia Avas not under- 
stood and realized by the multitude, nor that the Con- 
federate territory was fast narrowing down to the 
northern counties of Central North-Carolina, and that 
Raleigh was the last capital city we could claim. Beau- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 73 

regard, Johnston, Hardee, Hoke, Hampton, Wheeler- 
names that had thrilled the whole Southern country 
with pride and exultation — they were all there, and 
for a time people endeavored to believe that Raleigh 
might be defended. General Sherman's plans appeared 
to be inscrutable. When he left Columbia, Charlotte 
was supposed to be his aim ; but when he fell sudden- 
ly upon Fayetteville, then Kaleigh was to be his next 
stage. The astute plan of a junction with Schofield 
at Goldsboro, which appears now to have been pre- 
arranged while he was yet in Savannah, did not dawn 
upon our minds till it was too late to prevent it. The 
fight at Bentonsville was a desperate and vain attempt 
to do what might possibly have been done before, and 
in that last wild struggle many a precious life was 
given in vain. With sad anxiety for the fate of those 
we loved, with sinking hearts, we heard, from day to 
day, from Averasboro and from Bentonsville, of the wild 
charge, the short, fierce struggle, and the inevitable 
retreat, little thinking that these were indeed the last 
life-throbs of our dying cause. 

There was one from our own circle, whose story is 
but a representative one of the many thousand such 
that now darken what was once the Sunny South. 
He had joined the army in the beginning of the war, 
and his wife and children had fled from their pleasant 
home near New-Berne, on its first occupation by the 
Federal forces, leaving the negroes, plantation, house, 
furniture, and all to the invaders. They had taken 
refuge at Chapel Hill among old friends ; and in a poor 
and inconvenient home, those who had counted their 



74 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

wealth by thousands were glad of a temporary shelter, 
as was the case with hundreds of families from the 
east, scattered all over the central part of the State. 
The energetic wife laid aside the habits of a lifetime 
and went to work, while her brave husband was in 
the army. From ISTew-Berne to Richmond, from 
Charleston to the Blackwater, we, who had known 
him from boyhood, traced his gallant career, sharing 
his wife's triumphs in his successes, and her fears in 
his perils. Her health in unaccustomed toils began 
to fail, but we looked forward hopefully to the time 
when she might return to her beautiful home on the 
sea-shore, where a blander air would restore her. So 
Ave read his loving, cheerful letters, and believed that 
the life which had been spared through so many bat- 
tles would yet be guarded for the sake of the wife and 
the curly-haired little ones. On the twenty-second of 
March, riding unguardedly near a thicket, our friend 
received the fire of a squad of sharp-shooters concealed 
there. He fell from his horse and was carried to a 
place of safety, where he lay on the muddy ground of the 
tramj^led battle-field for a few hours, murmuring faintly 
at intervals, " My wife ! my poor wife !" till death merci- 
fully came. He was wrapped by his faithful servant 
in his blood-stained uniform and muddy blankets as he 
lay ; a coarse box was procured with great difiiculty, 
and so the soldier was brought back to his family. 
His last visit home had been just before the fall of 
Fort Fisher ; and when the news of the attack came, 
though his furlough was not out by ten days, yet he 
left at once for Wilmington, saying, "It was every 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 75 

man's duty to be at the front." He had returned to 
us now, " off duty forever." Loving hands laid him 
slowly and sadly down to a soldier's honored rest, 
while his little children stood around the grave. The 
wife made an effort to live for these children. She 
bore up through that woful spring and summer, and 
the thin, white, trembling hands were ever at work. 
But the brown hair turned gray rapidly, the easy-chair 
was relinquished for the bed, and before winter came 
the five children were left alone in the world. The 
wife had joined her husband. The ample estate that 
should have been theirs was gone. Strangers were in 
their home by the sea, and had divided out their lands ; 
nor is it yet known whether they will be permitted to 
claim their inheritance. 

This man. Colonel Edward B. Mallett, brave, be- 
loved, lamented, was also a grandson of the gay girl 
who had entertained Lord Cornwallis in her house 
near Cross Creek, and his fortunes were linked with 
those of the brother whose house and factory had been 
burned so lately. Thus did the destruction in one 
part of the State help on and intensify the ruin in an- 
other part. 

Stories such as these are our inheritance from the 
great war ; and yet, looking at the fate of those who 
have survived its dangers to be crushed by its issues, 
we may rather envy those who were laid sweetly to 
their rest while their hope for the country was not yet 
subjugated within them. 

Let them rave ! 
Thou art quiet in thy grave. 



CHAPTER VI. 

"SHAYS'S EEBELLION "— KENT ON MASSACHUSETTS— CONDUCT 
OF A NORTHERN GOVERNMENT TO NORTHERN REBELS — 
THE "WHISKY INSURRECTION" — HOW WASHINGTON TREAT- 
ED A EEBELLION — SECESSION OF NEW-ENGLAND BIRTH — 
THE WAR OF 1812 — BANCROFT ON 1676 — THE BACONISTS — 
AN APPEAL. 

By the last of March General Sherman had entered 
Goldsboro, and effected his long meditated junction 
with General Schofield. He himself at once proceed- 
ed to Southern Virginia to hold a conference with 
General Grant, while the grand army lay quiet a few 
days to rest, recruit, and prepare for its further ad- 
vance. Leaving them there, I venture to make a di- 
gression, suggested by the concluding lines of the 
preceding number of these sketches — a digression 
having for its object the consideration of the present 
policy of the Federal Government toward vanquished 
rebels, as compared with its policy in former cases of 
rebellion against its authority, even more inexcusable 
and unprovoked. 

Chancellor Kent, adverting to the first rebellion 
against the government of this country, known in his- 
tory as " Shays's Rebellion," pays the State of Massa- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. VT 

chusetts the following well-merited compliment on her 
conduct upon its suppression : " The clemency of 
Massachusetts in 1786, after an unprovoked and wan- 
ton rebellion, in not inflicting a single capital punish- 
ment, contributed, by the judicious manner in Avhich 
its clemency was applied, to the more firm establish- 
ment of their government." (Com. on Am. Law. 
Yol. i. p. 283.) What were the circumstances of this 
first rebellion? 

In 1786, the Legislature of that State laid taxes 
which were expected to produce near a million of dol- 
lars. The country had just emerged from the war of 
the Revolution in an exhausted and impoverished con- 
dition. Litigation abounded, and the people, galled 
by the pressure of their debts and of these taxes, 
manifested a spirit of revolt against their government. 
From loudly-expressed complaints they proceeded to 
meetings, and finally took up arms. They insisted 
that the courts should be closed ; they clamored 
against the lawyers and their exorbitant fees, against 
salaried public officers ; and they demanded the issue 
of paper money. The Governor of Massachusetts, 
John Bowdoin, convened the Legislature, and endea- 
vored to allay the general and growing mutiny by 
concessions; but the excitement still increasing, the 
militia were ordered out, and Congress voted a supply 
of thirteen thousand men to aid the State Government. 
The leader of the insurrection was Daniel Shays, late 
a captain in the Continental army. At the head of 
one thousand men he prevented the session of the Su- 
preme Court at Worcester, and liis army soon increas- 



^8 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

ing to two thousand, they marched to Springfield, to 
seize the national arsenal. Being promptly repulsed 
by the commandant there, they fled, leaving several 
killed and wounded. General Lincoln, at the head of 
four thousand militia, pursued them to Amherst, and 
thence to Pelham. On his approach they offered to 
disperse on condition of a general pardon ; but Gen- 
eral Lincoln had no authority to treat. They then 
retreated to Petersham. Lincoln pursued, and push- 
ing on all night through intense cold and a driving 
snow-storm, he accomplished an unprecedented march 
of forty miles, and early next morning completely sur- 
prised the rebels in Petersham, taking one hundred 
and fifty prisoners, and dispersing the rest so effectu- 
ally that they never rallied again. Many took refuge 
in Nev/-Hampshire and the neighboring States, where 
they were afterward arrested on requisition of Massa- 
chusetts. This ill-sustained and wanton rebellion was 
easily quelled. Fourteen of the prisoners were con- 
victed of treason, but not one was executed, and the 
terms of pardon imposed were so moderate that eight 
hundred took the benefit of them. Prudence dictated 
this moderation and clemency, for it "was known that 
at least a third of the population sympathized with 
the rebels. It was a significant fact that at the ensu- 
ing election. Governor Bowdoin, who had distinguish- 
ed himself by his zeal and energy, was defeated, and 
other public ofiicers who had been especially active 
against the rebels lost their seats, and were replaced 
by more popular men. Daniel Shays lived to a good 
old age, and died still in the enjoyment of his revolu- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 79 

tionaiy pension.* Such was the generous policy of a 
Northern goA-ernment to IS^orthern rebels in the first 
rebellion. 

The second rebellion, commonly called the "Whisky 
Insurrection " of Western Pennsylvania, assumed more 
formidable proportions, and was instigated by even 
more sordid and inexcusable motives. In 1784, the 
distillers of that part of the State were resolved to 
deny the right of excise to the Federal Government. 
The excise law, though very unpopular, had been car- 
ried into execution in every part of the United States, 
and in most of the counties of Pennsylvania ; but west 
of the Alleghany the people rose in arms against the 
Government officers, prevented them from exercising 
their functions, maltreated them, and compelled them 
to fly from the district, and finally called a meeting 
" to take into consideration the situation of the west- 
ern country." They seized upon the mail, and open- 
ed the letters to discover what reports had been sent 
of their proceedings to Philadelphia, and by whom. 
They addressed a circular letter to the officers of the 
militia in the disaffected counties, calling on them to 
rendezvous at Braddock's Field on the first of August, 
with arms in good order, and four days' provisions, an 
"expedition," it was added, "in which they could 
have an opportunity of displaying their military talent, 
and of serving the country." This insurrection was 
headed by David Bradford, the prosecuting attorney 

'^ For these particulars, I am indebted to Tucker's History of the United States, 
vol. i. chap. 4, and to Hildreth's History of the United States, first series, voL 
lii. chap. 45. 



80 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE, 

for Washington county, and was secretly fomented by 
agents of the French Republic, who desired nothing 
better than to see the downfall of Washington's ad- 
ministration, and the reign of anarchy inaugurated on 
this continent. A large body of men, estimated at 
from five to ten thousand, met on the day appointed 
at Braddock's Field. Bradford took upon himself the 
military command. Albert Gallatin (lately a rejected 
United States Senator, on the ground that he had not 
been a resident of the State the length of time pre. 
scribed for foreigners) was appointed Secretary. 
" Cowards and traitors " were freely denounced, and 
those who advocated moderate measures were over- 
awed and silenced. The rioters then marched to Pitts- 
burgh, which they would have burned but for the con- 
ciliatory conduct of the people of the town. They 
burned the houses of several obnoxious men, com- 
pelled them to leave the country, and then dispersed. 
It had been Bradford's design to get possession of 
Fort Pitt, and seize the arms and ammunition there ; 
but not being supported in this by the militia officers, 
he had abandoned it. All the remaining excise offi- 
cers in the district were now forced to leave. Many 
outrages were committed, houses burned, citizens in- 
sulted, and a reign of terror completely established. 

The news of this formidable and wide-spread insur- 
rection reaching Philadelphia, the President issued a 
proclamation reciting the acts of treason, commanding 
the insurgents to disperse, and warning others against 
abetting them. This was the first of such proclama- 
tions ever issued in this country, and was no doubt 



THE LAST NINETT DATS OF THE WAR. 81 

the model proposed to himself, and followed by Presi- 
dent Lincoln in 1861. But Washington, at the same 
time, appointed three commissioners — a member of 
liis cabinet, a Pennsylvania United States Senator, and 
a judge of the Supreme Court in that State — to repair 
to the scene of action, confer with the insurgents, and 
make every practicable attempt toward a peaceful ad- 
justment. The policy of calling out the militia was 
discussed in the Cabinet. Hamilton and Knox were 
in favor of it. Randolph opposed it, and so did Gov- 
ernor Mifflin, who was consulted, on the ground that 
a resort to force might influence and augment the ex- 
citement and unite the whole State in rebellion. 
Washington finally determined to take the responsi- 
bility on himself and act with vigor, since if such open 
and daring resistance to the laws were not met and 
checked at once, it might find many imitators in other 
parts of the country, then so agitated and unsettled. 
The commissioners having failed to come to any satis- 
factory terms with the rebels, the opinion rapidly 
gained ground that the interposition of an armed force 
was indispensable. A body of fifteen thousand mi- 
litia was called out from the States of Pennsylvania, 
New-Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, and the whole 
force put under the command of Governor (and Gen- 
eral) Henry Lee, of Virginia,* the father of our 

* Mj* readers will remember the reference in the second chapter to the capture 
by this officer of a portion of Tarleton's staff on Haw River, while engaged in 
satisfying the claims of a countryman for forage. No member of General Sher- 
man's'command is known to have suffered a surprise under similar circumstan- 
ces. Certainly not in this region ! 

Washington's characteristic sagacity and humanity were shown in the selectirn 
of General Lee as commander of the forces. 



82 THE LAST l^NETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

General Robert E. Lee. The news that this army was 
on the march materially increased the numbers and 
influence of the moderate party in Western Pennsyl- 
v^ania. The Standing Committee of the insurgents 
met and recommended submission, which was ably 
and zealously advocated by Albert Gallatin and 
Breckenridge. Nothing decisive was agreed upon? 
and pending another convention, many of the ring- 
leaders fled from the State ; David Bradford, who had 
been foremost among them, being the first to seek 
safety in flight to New-Orleans. 

A resolution of submission was passed at the second 
convention, and a committtee of two, one of whom, 
Findley, was a member of Congress, appointed to con- 
vey it to the President at Carlisle. The President re- 
ceived this committee courteously, but the march of 
the troops was not arrested. A third convention be- 
ing held, and resolutions to pay all excise duties and 
recommending the surrender of all delinquents having 
l^assed, General Lee issued a proclamation granting an 
amnesty to all who had submitted, and calling on the 
people to take the oath of allegiance to the United 
States. Orders were issued and executed to seize 
those ofi'enders who had not submitted, and send them 
to Philadelphia. Of those who were tried before the 
Circuit Court, only two were found guilty of capital 
ofienses, one of arson and the other of robbing the 
mail; and both were ultimately pardoned by the 
President. In less than four months from the burning 
of the first house, the insurrection was completely de- 
feated, and entire order restored. A force of twenty- 



THE LAST NI:N^BTT DATS OF THE WAR. 83 

five hundred militia was retained in the disaffected 
district during the ensuing winter, under command of 
General Morgan. Provision was made to indemnify 
those whose property had been destroyed, and an ap- 
propriation of more than a million of dollars was 
made by Congress to defray the expenses incurred. 
Albert Gallatin, who was then a hardly naturalized 
foreigner, notwithstanding the part he had taken in 
the earlier stages of the rebellion, by his subsequent 
moderate counsels had regained the confidence of the 
Government, and being the choice of the people of 
that district, was elected to the next Congress, taking 
his seat without any opposition or word of rebuke. 
His subsequent brilliant career is now part of our 
national history. Findley, who was a member of 
Congress at the time of the outbreak, and was at one 
time prominent among the sympathizers, though he 
acted at no time with decision, did not forfeit his seat 
by his participation in the revolt. He appeared in his 
place in Congress the ensuing November. He after- 
ward Avrote an elaborate history of the insurrection 
and a vindication of himself and his friends. Accord- 
ing to him the troops sent to quell the rebellion would 
have left more emphatic tokens of their desire for ven- 
geance on the rebels, "if it had not been for the 
moderation of Washington and his resistless weight 
of character in the execution of his purposes."* 

The prompt, energetic, and efficient measures of the 
Administration in arresting the progress of this re- 

* Tucker's History, vol. i, chap. 7. Hildreth's History, second series, vol. 1. 
chap. 7. 



84 THE LAST NINETY UATS OF THE WAE. 

« 

volt, and its magnanimity and moderation toward the 
offenders afterward, contributed very materially to 
strengthen the Government at a critical period of its 
existence, to give it dignity and influence, and to rally 
round it the best affections of the people. And its 
patience and forbearance had been somewhat tried by 
the State of Pennsylvania in those days. There had 
been many symptoms of instability in the " Keystone" 
of the newly-erected arch of civil liberty. There were 
two examples of mutiny among the Pennsylvania 
troops during the Revolution, and two popular insur- 
rections in regard to the excise laws, and this one had 
opened with the exhibition of a temper ferocious and 
reckless. The estimate by the Administration of the 
danger of the rebellion in 1794 may be inferred from 
the fact that the number of troops called for to sup- 
press it was greater, in proportion to the then popula- 
tion of the United States, than the call made by Pre- 
sident Lincoln in 1861 to the present population. In 
1790, the white population of the United States was 
3,172,464. The troops called out in '94 Avere 15,000. 
In 1860, the white population was 26,690,206. Troops 
ordered out, 75,000. The proportion in 1794 was 
greater, according to these figures, in the ratio of 389 
to 354, without allowing for increase from 1790 to '94. 
And the magnitude of the danger did indeed fully jus- 
tify all the apprehensions and precautions of the guar- 
diaiis of the state. The young republic was but newly 
formed, the Government scarcely settled. Many i-)romi- 
nent and able men in different parts of the country were 
turning admiring eyes toward France in her wild ca- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE "WAR. 85 

reer, others toward some vision of a monai'cliical form. 
Emissaries from the distracted states of the Old World 
were promj^t and zealous to foment discords and dis- 
turbances, and precedents were wanting every day to 
meet new issues that arose continually. The situation 
needed all the wisdom, prudence, and magnanimity of 
the illustrious man called by Providence to guide the 
first steps of a great nation. 

Does any one hesitate to believe that if we had had 
a Washington for President in 1860 and 1861, the 
late war would never have taken place ; that secession 
would never have been accomplished ? How vigor- 
ous and yet how conciliatory would have been the 
measures. The seventy-five thousand would no doubt 
have been called for, but commissioners of peace to^ 
the " wayward sisters" would have preceded them. 
In our day it was the insurgents who sent commission- 
ers. The best men of the South were a month in 
Washington City, vainly endeavoring for a hearing, 
vainly hoping for some offer of conciliation or adjust- 
ment, and deluded by promises from the highest offi- 
cials that were never meant to be fulfilled. 

Does any one doubt what would have been Wash- 
ington's conduct of the grand army through its un- 
paralleled and immortal march of triumph ? Even had 
he not been guided by Christian principles of honor 
and humanity, he would at least have emulated the 
example and shared the glory of the noble heathen of 
whom it was said : " Postremo signet^ et tahulas^ cete- 
raque ornamenta Grmcorum oppidorum, qiim ceteri 
tollenda esse arhitrantw\ ea sibi ille ne visenda quidem 



86 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

exisfimavit. Itaque omnes quidem nunc in his locis 
Cn. JPonipeium sicut aliquern non ex hac urhe inissum^ 
seel cle coelo delapsum^ intuentur P"^^ 

And finally, can any one doubt what his policy would 
now be toward the people so lately in arms against 
their Government ? Alas ! to him alone, first in wai 
and first in peace, can the whole of the splendid eulogy 
of the Roman orator to the great captain of his day 
be fittingly applied : " Humanitati jam tantd. est, ut 
difficile dictu sit, utrimi hostes magis virtutem ejus 
pugncintis timueriiit, an mansuetudinem victi delixer- 
int:'\ 

Just twenty years from the time of the second re- 
bellion, the third, and by far the most evil-disposed, 
malignant, and far-reaching expression of hostility to 
the General Government was organized. The Hart- 
ford Convention indeed never proceeded so far as to 
make an appeal to arms, but the spirit that suggested 
it, and the temper displayed by its leaders, give it un- 
doubtedly the best claim to have inaugurated the hate- 
ful doctrine of secession. 

The war of 1812 with England was, in general, 
excessively unpopular in the New-England States. 
Their commerce was burned; their fisheries were 
broken up, and their merchants and ship-owners, who 

* " Lastly, the statues and pictures and other ornaments of Grecian cities, 
which other commanders suppose might be carried off, he indeed thought that 
they ought not even to have been looked at by him. Therefore now all the inha- 
bitants in those places look upon Cn. Pompey as one not sent from this city, but 
descended from heaven." 

t "Now, by the exercise of such great humanity it has become hard to say 
whether his enemies feared his valor more when they were fighting, or loved his 
humanity more when they were conquered." 



THE LAST IHNETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 87 

constituted the wealthiest and most influential class 
among them, were heavy losers. The Administration 
had always been unpopular with them, and now its 
policy of embargo, non-importation, non-intercourse, 
and finally of war, were sufficient to rouse them into 
active opposition. This was manifested in various 
ways ; in the annual addresses of their governors ; in 
reports of legislative committees ; in laws to embar- 
rass the action of the Federal Executive, as, for in- 
stance, forbidding it the use of any of their jails for 
the confinement of prisoners of war, and ordering all 
their jailers to liberate all British prisoners committed 
to their keeping ; in refusing to contribute their quota of 
men for the support of the war, and even to allow them 
to march beyond the limits of their own State. The 
spirit of disafiection was diligently cherished by the 
leaders, and went on increasing in bitterness and ex- 
tent till a convention was proposed and agreed upon. 
On the 15th of December, 1814, there assembled in the 
city of Hartford twelve delegates from Massachusetts, 
seven from Connecticut, four from Rhode Island, three 
county delegates from New-Hampshire, and one from 
Vermont. They sat with closed doors till, the 5th of 
January, 1815, when they adjourned, having issued a 
report setting forth their grievances and aims. The 
following extract from a report of the proceedings of 
the Legislature will exhibit the spirit that prevailed 
through the State : 

" We believe that this war, so fertile in calamities, 
and so threatening in its consequences, has been waged 
with the worst possible views, and carried on in the 



88 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE "WAE. 

worst possible manner, forming a miion of wickedness 
and weakness which defies, for a parallel, the annals 
of the world. We believe also that its worst effects 
are yet to come ; that loan upon loan, tax upon tax, 
and exaction upon exaction, must be imposed, until the 
comforts of the present and the hopes of the rising 
generation are destroyed. A)i imj^overished 2^^02yle icill 
he an enslaved peoijle.'''' Of the right of the State to 
prevent the exercise of unconstitutional power by the 
General Government, they had no doubt. *' A power 
to regulate commerce is abused when employed to de- 
stroy it, and a voluntary abuse of power sanctions the 
right of resistance as much as a direct and palpable 
usurpation. The sovereignty reserved to the States 
was reserved to protect the citizens from acts of vio- 
lence by the United States, as well as for purposes of 
domestic regulation. We spurn the idea that the 
free, sovereign, and independent State of Massachu- 
setts is reduced to a mere municipal corporation, with- 
out jDOwer to protect its people, or to defend them 
from oppression, from whatever quarter it comes. 
Whenever the national compact is violated, and the 
citizens of this State oppressed by cruel and unauthor- 
ized enactments, this Legislature is bound to interpose 
its power, and to wrest from the oppressor its victim. 
This is the spirit of our Union." 

The manifesto of the Convention did not, could not, 
use stronger language. After proposing seven amend- 
ments to the Constitution, and giving reasons for their 
adoption, they disclaimed all hostility to that Con- 
stitution, and professed only to aim to unite all the 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 89 

friends of the country of all j^arties, and obtain their 
aid in effecting a change of Federal rulers. Should 
this be hopeless, they hinted at the " necessity of more 
mighty efforts," which were plainly set forth in their 
resolutions, and everywhere understood to refer to a 
secession of the five N"ew-England States, their con- 
solidation into an independent government of their 
own, or alliance with England.* 

The time chosen for such a display of enmity to the 
Union was most opportune for the purposes of the 
traitors. A war with a foreign foe, and that foe the 
most powerful nation on earth, was in progress ; the 
Administration was greatly embarrassed ; the country 
was rent with fierce party factions. What would be 
the issue no human wisdom could foresee ; but that 
the ruin of the country was not then effected, can not 
be attributed to the patriotism of the New-England 
States. Three commissioners, appointed by the Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, to whom Connecticut added- 
two others, proceeded to Washington to lay their re- 
solutions and applications before the Government. 
But, most hap23ily, news of the treaty of Ghent and 
consequent peace arriving at the same time with these 
envoys, their mission became the theme of unsj^aring 
taunt and ridicule in the j)apers, and they returned 
home without disburdening themselves of their object. 
Thug the third rebellion was snuffed out by events ; 
but its sparks were blown far and wide by viewless 
winds, and effected a lodgment where, though smoth- 

* Tucker's History, vol. iii. chap. 18. Hildreth, vol. iii. chap. 29. 



90 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

ered for a generation or two, they yet burned in 
secret, and at length burst out in the great conflagra- 
tion of 1860, which lit the whole horizon and dyed the 
very heavens with its crimson. The principles of the 
Hartford Convention were the seeds of nullification 
and secession. 

The eminent historian from Massachusetts records 
in glowing pages the stifling of the earliest throbs of 
civil and religious liberty on this continent in 1676. 
The earliest martyr in the Bacon Rebellion against 
monarchical tyranny was William Drummond, the 
first Governor of North- Carolina. His name is written 
on the beautiful sheet of water that lies within the 
tangled brakes of the great swamp on the hordes rof 
the land he loved and served so well. In that rebel- 
lion the women (as at this day) shared the popular 
enthusiasm. " The child that is unborn," said Sarah 
Drummond, *' shall rejoice for the good that will come 
by the rising of the country." She would not sufier 
a throb of fear in her bosom, and in the greatest perils 
to which her husband was exposed, she confidently 
exclaimed, " We shall do well enough," and continu- 
ally encouraged the people and inspired the soldiers 
with her own enthusiasm. When Edmund Cheesman 
was arraigned for trial, his wife declared that but for 
her he never would have joined the rebellion, and on 
her knees begged that she might bear the jiunishment. 
Yet these devoted people saw the cause for which 
they had risked and lost every thing in the dust, 
overthrown, and trampled upon with vindictive fury 
by the triumphant royalists. In the judicial trials 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAR. 91 

that followed, a rigor and merciless severity were ex- 
hibited, worthy of the gloomy judge whose "bloody 
assize," ten years later, on the western circuit of Eng- 
land, has left an indelible blot on her history. Twenty- 
two were hanged ; three others died of cruelty in 
prison ; three more fled before trial ; two escaped after 
conviction. Nor is it certain when Sir William Berke- 
ley's thirst for blood would have been appeased if the 
newly convened assembly had not voted an address 
that the Governor " should spill no more blood." On 
Berkeley's return to England he was received with 
coldness, and his cruelty openly disavowed by the gov- 
ernment. "That old fool," said the kind-hearted 
Charles II., " has taken more lives in that naked coun- 
try than I for the murder of my father." * 

" More blood Avas shed," adds the historian, " than, 
on the action of our present political system, would be 
shed for political offenses in a thousand years." Alas ! 
for the sunny South, the scorched and consumed South, 
alas for her ! that the prediction of the great Ameri- 
can historian is not history ! 

Considering this rebellion in the perspective afford- 
ed by nearly two hundred years, it is easy for us to 
■understand how the severity with which it was pun- 
ished by the fanatic old royal Governor only drove 
the entering-wedge of separation between the mother 
country and her colonies in America deeper. The 
principles of Bacon and his party had obtained a great 
hold on the popular mind ; and though for years all 

* Bancroft's History, vol. ii. chap. 14 



92 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAE. 

tendency to a popular government appeared to be 
crushed out and forever silenced, yet they were there, 
in the hearts of men, silently growing, nurtured by a 
deep sense of injustice and wrong, and biding their 
time. Just a century from the suppression of the 
" Baconists," the Declaration of Independence was 
adopted ; Sarah Drummond's words were verified, and 
Bacon and Drummond and Cheesman and Hansford 
were amply avenged. 

It is to such pages of history as these that I would 
turn the attention of our Northern friends now. Here 
they may see how the Father of his country dealt with 
his wayward children. How a prompt and dignified 
and successful assertion of the rights of the Federal 
Government were followed by leniency and generous 
and prudent forbearance such as a great government 
can aftbrd to show, and by Avhich it best exhibits its 
strength and its claims to the love and veneration of 
its people. Here they may see how a brutal gratifi- 
cation of vengeance, a lust of blood, like the tiger's 
spring, overleaps its mark. The hardest lesson to be 
learned is moderation in the hour of triumph; the 
greatest victory to be achieved is the victory over 
self 

Where now are the Bowdoins, the Hancocks, the 
Dexters, the Ames, the Websters of Massachusetts ? 
Has she no statesman now capable of rising to the 
magnanimity which characterized her early history ? 
Has thrice revolting and thrice pardoned Pennsylvania 
no representative man who can rise to the height of 
the great argument, and vindicate the cause of a 



THE LAST NIXETY LAYS OF THE WAE. 93 

country pillaged and plundered and j^eeled to an ex- 
tent of which the history of civilized humanity affords 
us no parallel? Is there no one now to stand up and 
advocate for Southerners the same measure of forbear- 
ance and generosity that was shown by a Southern 
President to Northern rebels ? 

"O thou that spoilest and wast not spoiled, that 
dealt treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously 
with thee ! " haste to the work of reconciliation and 
to build up the waste places ! Even now on our 
thresholds are heard the sounds of the departing feet 
of those who in despair for their country, hopeless of 
peace or of justice, are leaving our broad, free, noble 
land for the semi-civilized haciendas of Mexico or of 
far-off tropical Brazil. Even now are their journals 
scattered freely among us — invitations, beckonings, 
sneers at the North, flattery of the South, fair prom- 
ises, golden lures, every inducement held out to a 
high-hearted and fainting j^eople to cast their lot in 
with them. Haste to arrest them by some display of 
returning fraternity and consideration, ere for them we 
raise the saddest lament yet born of the war : " Weep 
ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him ; but weep 
sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no 
more, nor see his native country ! " 



^ 



CHAPTER VII. 

SCHOFIELD'S AHMT— SHERMAN'S— THEIB OUTRAGES— UNION SEN- 
TBIENT — A DISAPPOINTMENT— NINETY-TWO TEARS AGO— GOV- 
ERNOR GRAHAM — HIS ANCESTRY— HIS CAREER — GOVERNOR 
MANLY. 

The town of Goldsboro was occupied by General 
Schofield's army on the twenty-first of March. No 
resistance was offered by the Confederates, who had 
withdrawn in the direction of Smithfield, with the ex- 
ception of one regiment of cavahy, which had a slight 
skirmish with Schofield's advance near the town. 
General Schofield's conduct toward the citizens of the 
town was conciliatory. No plundering was allowed 
by him ; efficient guards were stationed, and beyond 
the loss of fences and outhouses torn down for firing, 
etc., depredations on poultry-yards, etc., and a few 
smoke-houses, there was but little damage done. But 
in the surrounding country the outrages were innumer- 
able, and in many places the desolation complete. On 
the twenty-third of March General Sherman's grand 
army made its appearance, heralded by the columns 
of smoke which rose from burning farm-houses on the 
south side of the ISTeuse. For thirty-six hours they 
poured in, in one continuous stream. Every available 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 95 

spot in the town, and for miles around it, Avas covered 
with the two armies, estimated at one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand men. General Sherman's repu- 
tation had preceded him, and the horror and dismay 
with which his approach was anticipated in the coun- 
try were fully warranted. The town itself was in a 
measure defended, so to speak, by General Schofield's 
preoccupation ; but in the vicinity and for twenty miles 
round, the country was most thoroughly plundered 
and stripped of food, forage, and private property of 
every description. One of the first of General Sher- 
man's own acts, after his arrival, was of peculiar hard- 
ship. One of the oldest and most venerable citizens 
of the place, with a family of sixteen or eighteen child- 
ren and grandchildren, most of them females, was or- 
dered, on a notice of a few hours, to vacate his house, 
for the convenience of the General himself, which of 
course was done. The gentleman was nearly eighty 
years of age, and in very feeble health. The out- 
houses, fences, grounds, etc., Avere destroyed, and the 
property greatly damaged during its occupation by 
the General. Not a farm-house in the country but 
was visited and wantonly robbed. Many were burn- 
ed, and very many, together with out-houses, were 
pulled down and hauled into camps for use. Gener- 
ally not a live animal, not a morsel of food of any 
description was left, and in many instances not a bed 
or sheet or change of clothing for man, woman, or 
child. It was most heart-rending to see daily crowds 
of country people, from three-score and ten years of 
age, down to the unconscious infant carried in its 



96 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

mother's arms, coming into the town to beg food and 
shelter, to ask ahiis from those who had despoiled 
them. Many of these families lived for days on 
parched corn, on peas boiled in water Avithout salt, 
on scraps picked iij) about the camps. The number 
of carriages, buggies, and wagons brought in is almost 
incredible. They kept for their own use what they 
wished, and burned or broke up the rest. General 
Logan and staff took possession of seven rooms in the 
house of John C. Slocumb, Esq., the gentleman of whose 
statements I avail myself. Every assurance of pro- 
tection was given to the family by the quartermaster ; 
but many indignities were offered to the inmates, 
while the house was as effectually stripped as any 
other of silver plate, watches, wearing apparel, and 
money. Trunks and bureaus were broken open and 
the contents abstracted. >Tot a plank or rail or post 
or paling was left anywhere upon the grounds, while 
fruit-trees, vines, and shrubbery were wantonly de- 
stroyed. These officers remained nearly three weeks, 
occupying the family beds, and when they left the 
bed-clothes also departed. 

It is very evident that General Sherman entered 
North-Carolina with the confident expectation of re- 
ceiving a welcome from its Union-loving citizens. In 
Major Nichols's story of the Great March, he remarks, 
on crossing the line which divides South from North- 
Carolina : " The conduct of the soldiers is perceptibly 
changed. I have seen no evidence of plundering, the 
men keep their ranks closely ; and more remarkable yet, 
not a single column of the fire or smoke which a few 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 97 

days ago marked the positions of the heads of columns, 
can be seen upon the horizon. Our men seem to 
understand that they are entering a State which has 
suffered for its Union sentiment, and whose inhabit- 
ants would gladly embrace the old flag again if they 
can have the opportunity, which we mean to give 
them," (page 222.) But the town-meeting and war 
resolutions of the people of Fayetteville, the fight in 
her streets, and Governor Vance's proclamation, soon 
undeceived them, and their amiable dispositions were 
speedily corrected and abandoned. 

On first entering our State, Major Nichols, looking 
sharply about him, and fortunately disposed to do jus- 
tice, under the impression that he was among friends, 
declares : " It is not in our imagination alone that we 
can at once see a difference between South and North- 
Carolina. The soil is not superior to that near Che- 
raw, but the farmers are a vastly different class of men. 
I had always supposed that South-Carolina was agri- 
culturally superior to its sister State. The loud pre- 
tensions of the chivalry had led me to believe that the 
scorn of these gentlemen was induced by the inferior- 
ity of the people of the old N'ortli.State, and that they 
were little better than ' dirt-eaters ;' but the strong 
Union sentiment which has always found utterance 
here should have taught me better. The real differ- 
ence between the two regions lies in the fact that here 
the plantation owners work with their own hands, and 
do not think they degrade themselves thereby. For 
the first time since we bade farewell to salt water, I 
have to-cTay seen an attempt to manure land. The 



98 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAE. 

army has passed through thirteen miles or more of 
splendidly-managed plantatioi^ ; the corn and cotton- 
fields are nicely plowed and furrowed ; the fences are 
in capital order ; the barns are well built ; the dwell- 
ing-houses are cleanly, and there is that air of thrift 
which shows that the owner takes a personal interest 
in the management of affairs," (page 222.) 

It happens curiously enough that North-Carolina, 
ninety-two y^ars ago, made much the same impres- 
sion on a stranger then traveling peacefully through 
her eastern border ; and his record is worth comparing 
with the foregoing, as showing that her State individ- 
uality was as strongly and clearly defined then as now, 
and that the situation of our people in IVZS closely re- 
sembled in some particulars that of their descendants 
in 1865. 

" The soils and climates of the Carolinas differ, but 
not so much as their inhabitants. The number of ne- 
groes and slaves is much less in ISTorth than in South- 
Carolina. Their staple commodity is not so valuable, 
not being in so great demand as the rice, indigo, etc., 
of the South. Hence labor becomes more necessary, 
and he who has an interest of his own to serve is a 
laborer in the field. Husbandmen and agriculture in- 
crease in number and improvement. Industry is up 
in the woods at tar, pitch, and turpentine ; in the 
fields plowing, planting, clearing, or fencing the land. 
Herds and flocks become more numerous. You see 
husbandmen, yeomen, and white laborers scattered 
through the country instead of herds of negroes and 
slaves. Healthful countenances and nmnerous fami- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 99 

lies become more common as you advance. Property- 
is much more equally- diffused through one province 
than in the other, and this may account for some if 
not all the differences of character in the inhabitants. 
The people of the Carolinas certainly vary much as 
to their general sentiments, opinions, and judgments ; 
and there is very little intercourse between them. 
The present State of North- Carolina is really curi- 
ous / there are hut five promncial laws in force through 
the colony., and no courts at all in being. JSfo one can 
recover a debt^ except before a single magistrate, lohere 
the sums are loithin his jurisdiction, and offenders 
escape with impunity. The people are in great con- 
sternation about the matter ; what will be the conse- 
que7ice is problematical P (Memoir ofJosiah Quincy, 
Jr., page 123.) The situation of North-Carolina dur- 
ing the last eight months of 1865 furnishes an exact 
parallel to the above concluding j)aragraph, and the 
Avhole may be taken as a fiir illustration of the oft- 
repeated sentiment that history but repeats itself. 

Major Nichols's impression of the old North State 
would scarcely have been so favorably expressed had. 
he known what reception her people w^ere to give the 
grand army. One week later, he writes : " Thus far 
we have been painfully disappointed in looking for 
the Union sentiment in North-Carolina, about wbich 
so much has been said. Our experience is decidedly 
in favor of its sister State. The city of Fayetteville 
was offensively rebellious ;" and further on, " The 
rebels have shown more pluck at Averasboro and at 
Bentonsville than we have encountered since leaving 
Atlanta." 



100 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

While the Federal armies lay at Golclsboro, trains 
were running day and night from Beaufort and from 
Wilmington, conveying stores for the supply and com- 
plete refit of Sherman's army. The Confederate army, 
lying between Goldsboro and Raleigh, having no sup- 
plies or reenforcements to receive, waited grimly and 
despairingly the order to fall back upon Raleigh, which 
came as soon as General Sherman, having effected his 
interview with General Grant, had returned to Golds- 
boro, with his future plan of action matured, and once 
more, on the tenth of April, set the grand army in 
motion. The scenes in Raleigh during the first week 
of April were significant enough. The removal of 
government stores, and of the effects of the banks ; 
the systematic concealment of private property of 
every description ; the hurried movements of troops 
to and fro ; the doubt, dismay, and gloom painted 
on every man's face, told but too well the story 
of anticipated defeat and humiliation. If there 
were any who secretly exulted in the advance of the 
Federal army, they were not known. The near- 
est approach to any such feeling in any respectable 
man's breast was probably the not unnatural sense 
of satisfaction with whicl; md'n who had long seen 
their opinions derided and execrated now felt that 
their hour of vindication was arriving, the hour which 
every thoughtful man in the State had long since fore- 
seen. The united North was too strong for the South, 
and the weaker cause — whether right or wrong — was 
doomed. I repeat, not a thoughtful or clear-headed 
man in North-Carolina but had foreseen this result as 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 101 

most probable, while at the same time not a thoughtfai 
man or respectable citizen within our borders but had 
considered it his duty as well as his interest to stand 
by his State and do all in his power to assist her in the 
awful struggle. Till the N'orthern people, as a bod}^, 
can understand how it was that such conflicting emo- 
tions' held sway among us, and can see how an honor- 
able people could resist and deplore secession, and yet 
fight to the last gasp in support of the Confederacy, 
and in obedience to the laws of the State, it is idle 
to hope for a fair judgment from them. This, how- 
ever, contradictory as it may seem to superficial observ- 
ers, was the position of ISTorth-Carolina all through the 
war, from its wild inception to its sullen close, and as 
such was defended and illustrated by her best and 
ablest statesmen. Foremost and most earnest in her 
efforts to maintain peace and preserve the Union — for 
she was the only State which sent delegates to both 
the Northern and Southern peace conventions — she was 
yet foremost also in the fight and freest in her expend- 
iture of blood and treasure to sustain the common 
cause, which she had so reluctantly embraced ; and 
now the time was fast approaching when she was 
again to vindicate her claims to supreme good sense 
and discretion, by being among the first to admit the 
hopelessness and sin of further effort, and the first to 
offer and accept the olive-branch. 

Frequently during the winter of 1864-65, had the 
eyes of our people been turned toward our Senator in 
the Confederate Congress, anxious for some public 
expression of opinion as to the situation from him, 



102 THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAE. 

waiting to see what course he would indicate as most 
l^roper and honorable. For of those who stood fore- 
most as representative North-Carolinians, of those who 
possessed the largest share of personal popularity and 
influence in the State, it is not l^oo much to say that 
Ex-Governor Geaham Avas by far the most conspicu- 
ous and preeminent — the man of whom it may bs said 
more truly than of any other, that as he spoke so North- 
Carolina felt, and as he acted, so North-Carolina will- 
ed. And now, in the approaching crisis, there was no 
man by whose single deliberate judgment the whole 
State would have so unanimously agreed to be guided. 

It may be well to pause here and glance at Gov- 
ernor Graham's antecedents and associations, the bet- 
ter to understand his claims to such j)rominence and 
such influence. 

In a country such as ours, where hereditar}^ distinc- 
tions do not exist, it is peculiarly pleasant to observe 
such a transmission of principles, and virtues, and tal- 
ents, as is exhibited in the Graham family. The father 
of Governor Graham was General Joseph Graham, of 
Revolutionary fame, than whom there did not exist a 
more active and able partisan leader in North-Carolina. 
In the afiair at Charlotte in IVSO, referred to in a pre- 
ceding number, when one hundred and fifty militia, 
under Colonel Davie, gave the whole British army 
under Cornwallis such a warm reception, most effi- 
cient aid was rendered by Major Joseph Graham, who 
commanded a small company of A^olunteers on that 
occasion. He was covered with wounds, and his re- 
covery was considered by his friends as little short of 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAR. 103 

miraculous. ^ But he was afterward distinguished in 
many heroic exploits, and commanded in no less than 
fifteen different engagements. 

His youngest son, William Alexander, was born in 
1804, in Lincoln county, graduated at the State Uni- 
versity in 1824, chose the profession of the law, and 
entered upon public life as member of the General As- 
sembly in 1833, three years before the death of his 
venerable ^father. The talents, patriotism, and energy 
which had distinguislied the Revolutionary patriot, 
were transmitted in full measure to his son, and North- 
Carolina evinced her appreciation of his abilities by 
retaining him in public office whenever he would con- 
sent to serve, from the time of his first entrance. And 
Governor Graham has never failed, has never been 
unequal to the occasion, or to the expectations formed 
of him, however high. His very appearance gives as- 
surance of the energy, calm temper, high ability, and 
nerve which have always characterized him. As a 
lawyer and advocate, his reputation is eminent and 
his success brilliant ; but it is as a statesman that his 
career is particularly to be noted now. He was 
United States Senator in 1840, elected Governor of 
the Sta,te in 1844, and reelected in 1846. His imme- 
diate predecessor in this office was the Hon J. M. 
Morehead, previously referred to as a member of the 
Peace Convention at Washington ; and his successor 
Avas the Hon. Charles Manly—all Whigs^ — and Gov- 
ernor Manly, the last of that school of politics elected 
to that office, previous to the civil war. Governor 
Graham was appointed Secretary of the Navy in 1850, 



104 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

by President Fillmore, which he resigned in 1852 on 
receiving the nomination for Vice-President on the 
ticket with General Scott. He was repeatedly mem- 
ber of the General Assembly, and in all positions has 
merited and enjoyed the fullest and most unhesitating 
confidence of the people he represented, worthy of 
them and worthy of his parentage. 

His connection in politics having been ever with 
the Whig party, he was thereby removed in the fur- 
thest possible degree from any countenance to the 
doctrines of Nullification and Secession. Hence he 
had concurred with Webster's great speech in reply 
to Hayne in 1830, with the proclamation of Jackson 
in 1832, with Clay in 1850, and with the entire policy 
of President Fillmore's eminently national adminis- 
tration. In February, 1860, he visited Washington 
City to consult with such friends as Crittenden of 
Kentucky, Rives of Virginia, and Granger of New- 
York, on the dangers then environing and threaten- 
ing the country, the result of which was a convention 
nominating Bell and Everett for the Presidential tick- 
et, with the motto, " The Union, the Constitution, 
and the enforcement of the laws." He canvassed the 
State on his return home, for these candidates and 
principles, warning the people, however, that there 
was a likelihood of Mr. Lincoln's election ; and that 
in such a case it was evidently the purpose of the Se- 
cessionists who supported Breckinridge, to break up 
the Government and involve the country in civil war. 
Party, however, was at that time stronger than patri- 
otism, and Breckinridge carried the State. On Mr. 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE "WAR. 105 

Lincoln's election, Governor Graham made pnblic ad- 
dresses, exhorting the people to submit and yield due 
obedience to his office. ' "VYhen the Legislature that 
' winter ordered an election to take the sense of the 
people on the call of a convention, and at the same 
time to elect delegates. Governor Graham oj)posed 
the call, and it was signally defeated in the State. 
He was proposed as a Commissioner to the Peace 
Convention at Washington, but was rejected by the 
secessionist majority because of his decided and open- 
ly expressed Union sentiments. 

After the attack on Fort Sumter, and the secession 
of Virginia and of Tennessee, leaving North-Carolina 
13erfectly isolated among the seceded States, and with 
civil war already begun, Governor Graham decided 
to adopt the cause of the Southern States, but with 
pain and reluctance, not upon any pretense of right, 
but as a measure of revolution, and of national inter- 
est and safety. He was a member of the convention 
which in May, 1861, carried the State out of the Union, 
and from the date of the secession ordinance he en- 
deavored in good faith and honor to sustain the cause 
of the Confederate States, but without any surrender 
on the part of the people of the rights and liberties of 
freemen. In the Convention of 1862, he delivered an 
elaborate speech in opposition to test oaths, sedition 
laws, the suspension of the privilege of habeas corpus^ 
and all abridgments of the constitutional rights of the 
citizen, either by State conventions, or by Legislatures, 
or by Congress, which may be safely pronounced the 
clearest and ablest vindication of the cardinal prin- 



106 THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAE. 

ciples of civil liberty presented in the annals of the 
Confederacy. 

The expression of snch views, such an evident de- 
termination that the country should be free, not only, 
in the end, but in the means, coupled with great mod- 
eration of opinion as to the final result of the struggle, 
and a total absence of all fire-eating proclivities, drew 
down upon him the free criticism of the secession press 
and party, many of whom did not hesitate to brand 
him as a traitor to the cause, notwithstanding the as- 
surances he gave of five sons in the army, some one 
of whom was in every important battle on the Atlan- 
tic slope, except Bull Run and Chancellorsville ; two 
being present when the flag of Lee went down on his 
last battle-field at Appomattox, while a third then lay 
languishing with a severe and reeent wound at Pe- 
tersburg. Governor Graham's sons derived no ad- 
vantage from their father's distinguished position in 
North-Carolina. They received no favors or patron- 
age from the Government, but were engaged in ardu- 
ous and perilous service all through, in such subor- 
dinate ofiices as were conferred by the election of their 
comrades, or in the ordinary course of promotion. 

'No families in the State gave more freely of their 
best blood and treasure in the support of the war than 
the Graham family and its connections. Governor 
Graham's younger sister, Mrs. Morrison, wife of the 
Rev. Dr. Morrison, of. Lincoln county, the first Presi- 
dent of Davidson College, had three sons in the ser- 
vice, and four sons-in-law, namely. Major Avery, Gen- 
eral Barringer, General D. H. Hill, and prceclanim 



THE LAST NIISTETY DATS OF THE WAR. 107 

et venerahile nomen^ Stoi^'ewall Jackson ! Perhaps 
no two families entered upon tlie rebellion more re- 
luctantly, nor in their whole course were more entirely 
in unison with the views and feelings of the great 
body of our citizens. 

Major Avery, the youngest of Dr. Morrison's sons- 
in-law, was one of five brothers, sons of Colonel Isaac 
T. Avery, of Bm-ke ; grandsons of Colonel Waightstill 
Avery, who commanded a regiment during the revo- 
lutionary war, and was a member of the Mecklenburg 
Convention, and a colleague there of Major Robert 
Davidson, Mrs. Morrison's maternal grandfather 
Three of these five brothers fell in battle. The 
youngest. Colonel Isaac T. Avery, named* for his 
father, fell at Gettysburgh. He survived his w^ounds 
a few minutes, long enough to beckon to his lieuten- 
ant-colonel for a pencil and a scrap of paper, on which 
with his dying fingers he assured his father that he 
died doing his whole duty. His father, approaching 
his eightieth year, received the note, stained with his 
son's life-blood, and died a few weeks afterward. The 
oldest of the brothers, Waightstill, named for his 
grandfather, and the pride of the family, was a son-in- 
law of Governor Morehead, and his colleague in the 
first Confederate Congress. He fell in Kirk's raid 
near Morganton. Governor Morehead,* who was, with 
the exception of the distinguished President of the 
University, Governor Swain, thfe oldest of the surviv- 
ing ex-governors of the State, had two sons and two 

* This distinguished gentleman has departed this life since these sketches were 
first published in The Watchman.— Editor. 



108 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAE. 

sons-in-law in the army ; the two latter were killed. 
Govornor Graham's immediate successor as governor 
— Charles Manly, of Raleigh — had three sons in the 
army, all of whom saw hard service ; and three sons- 
in-law, two of whom were killed. There were not 
wanting those in the dark hours of the contest who 
spoke of it as " the rich man's war, and the poor man's 
fight." These examples show that it was the war of 
all. The rich and the poor met together, and mingled 
their blood in a common current, and lie together 
among the unrecorded dead. The history of many 
families may be traced whose sacrifices were similar 
to the above instances. And it is now the imperative 
duty of those fitted for the work, to gather up these 
records for posterity, and for the future historian and 
annalist of the country. Many striking coincidences 
and connections in family history, many most afiect- 
ing instances of unselfish devotion and of irreparable 
loss, are yet to be preserved by hands eager 

" To light the flame of a soldier's fame 
On the tm'f of a soldier's grave." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GOVERNOR GRAHAM OPPOSES SECESSION — BUT GOES WITH HIS 
STATE — IS SENT TO THE CONEEDERATE SENATE — HIS AGEN- 
CY IN THE HAMPTON ROADS INTERVIEW — REMARKABLE 
AND INTERESTING LETTERS FROM GOVERNOR GRAHAM, 
WRITTEN FROM RICHMOND IN 1865. 

Whatevee distrust of Governor Graham was mani- 
fested by those who had invoked the war, he was 
fully sustained by the people ; for the adoption of the 
ordinance of secession by no means implied the acces- 
sion of secessionists to power in the State. That 
step having been taken, the Confederate Constitution 
ratified, and the honor and future destiny of our jdco- 
ple being staked on the revolution. Governor Graham 
stood prepared to devote all the energies of the State 
to give it success ; and the mass of the people, not be- 
ing willing to forgive the authors of the movement, 
demanded the services of the Union men who had em- 
braced it as a necessity. Governor Graham was sent 
from the Legislature by a majority of three fourths to 
the Confederate Senate, in December, 1863, on the re- 
signation of the Hon. George Davis, who had accepted 
the appointment of Attorney-General in the Cabinet 
of President Davis. Before the commencement of his 



110 THE LAST OTNETr DAYS OF THE WAE. 

term, (May, 18G4,) by means of conscription and im- 
pressment laws, and the suspension of haheas corpus^ 
the whole population and resources of the country had 
been placed at the command of the President for the 
prosecution of the war. The implicit and entire sur- 
render by the whole Southern people of their dearest 
civil rights and liberties, of their lives and property 
into the hands of the Government, for the support of 
a war, which, it may be safely asserted, the large ma- 
jority were opposed to, will form a field of curious and 
interesting speculation to the future historian and 
philosopher. There can not be a higher compliment 
paid to the character of our people, and the principles 
in which they had been nurtured, than the fact that no 
intestine disorders or disasters followed, upon such ex- 
traordinary demands of power on the one part, and 
such extraordinary resignation of rights on the other. 
Whatever the Confederate Government asked for its 
ov,^n security, the people gave, and gave freely to the 
last. 

The defeats at Gettysburgh and Vicksburgh had 
turned the tide of success in favor of the North, and al- 
though this was partially relieved by the minor victo- 
ries of Plymouth and elsewhere, the hopes of ultimate 
success were becoming much darkened. Governor Gra- 
ham had never doubted that the North had the physical 
ability to conquer, if her people could be kept up to a 
persevering effort, nor that our only chances depended 
on their becoming wearied of the contest. As our for- 
tunes lowered, all men of prevision and sagacity 
turned their thoughts toward the possibility of over- 



THE LAST I^INETY DAYS OF THE WAR. Ill 

tures for peace as becoming daily of greater import- 
auce and more imminent necessity. But how could 
this be done ? "With a powerful enemy pressing us, 
with war established by law, with entire uncertainty 
as to the terms to be expected in case of submission, 
with the necessity imposed of making no public de- 
monstration which should dampen the arllor of our 
troops, or depress still further the spirits of our peo- 
ple, and excite the hopes of the enemy ;• with such 
obstacles in the way, peace could not be approached 
by a public man without involving the risk of in- 
augurating greater evils than tho'se he sought to avert. 
Besides all this, by the adoption of the Constitution 
of the Confederate States, (which, by the way^ Gover- 
nor Graham had vainly endeavored to prevent in 
convention, without a second,) all legal power to ter- 
minate the war had been surrendered to the President. 
Any other method would have been revolutionary, and 
have provoked civil strife among us, and, doubtless, 
sharp retribution. 

The only plan, therefore, which could afford reason- 
able hope of success was to operate upon and through 
the President. This was attempted at the first session 
of Congress of which Governor Graham was a mem- 
ber, by secret resolutions introduced by Mr. Orr, the 
present Governor of South-Carolina, which, howevei-, 
failed to get a majority vote of the Senate. Governor 
Graham, who was deeply impressed with a sense of 
the absolute necessity of some movement toward 
peace, and who was not among the confidential friends 
of the President, attempted next to operate on him 



112 THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

through those who were in some measure influential 
with him. By this means he had an agency in setting 
on foot the mission to Fortress Monroe, the result of 
which is well known. In the absence of Mr. Hunter 
on that mission, Governor Graham was president pro 
tern, of the Senate. Disappointed and mortified by 
that failure, he then approached President Davis di- 
rectly, and the results were stated in his private cor- 
respondence with a confidential friend in North-Caro- 
lina. There can be no better exponent of Governor 
Graham's position and views at this momentous crisis in 
our history, than is folmd in these letters, and I esteem 
myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to present to 
my readers such extracts from them as will assist my 
purpose. They are the letters of a consummate states- 
man, and of a patriot, and need no heralding : 

RiCHMOXD, January 28, 1865. 
My Dear Sir : The intervention of F. P. Blair, 
who has passed two or three times back and forth 
from Washington to this city recently, has resulted in 
the appointment to-day by the President of an infor- 
mal commission, consisting of Messrs. A. H. Stephens, 
R. M. T. Hunter, and J. A. Campbell, to proceed to 
Washington and confer with a like band there, on 
the subject-matters of diiference between the Northern 
and Southern States, with a view to terms of peace. 
The action of the Senate was not invoked, it is pre- 
sumed because the appointment of formal ministers 
might be considered inadmissible until the question of 
recognition should be settled in our favor. I trust that a 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OE THE WAK. 113 

termination of hostilities will be tlie result. From sever- 
al conversations with Mr. Hunter, in concert with whom 
I have been endeavoring to reach this form of inter- 
course since the commencement of the session of Con- 
gress, I am satisfied that the first efibrt will be to 
establish an armistice of as long duration as may be 
allowed, and then to agree upon terms of settlement. 
Upon the latter I anticipate great conflict of views. 
The Northern mind is wedded to the idea of recon- 
struction, and notwithstanding the violence of the ex- 
travagant Republicans, I am convinced would guar- 
antee slavery as it now exists, and probably make other 
concessions, including of course, amnesty, restoration 
of confiscated property, except slaves, and perhaps 
some compensation for a part of these. On the other 
hand, while the people of the South are wearied of 
the war, and are ready to make the greatest sacrifice 
to end it, there are embarrassments attending the ab- 
dication of a great government such as now wields the 
power of the South, especially by the agents appointed 
to maintain it, that are difiicult to overcome. The 
commission is a discreet one, and upon the whole is 
as well constituted as I expected, and I trust that good 
will come of it. I have not seen any of the gentlemen 
since hearing to-day of their appointment, and I learn 
they are to set off to-morrow. I am therefore ignorant 
of the instructions they may carry, if any have been 
given. The Vice-President was not on terms with the 
head of the Government until a reconciliation yesterday. 
Although the North would seem to be bent on war 
unless and until the Union be restored, they yet re- 



114 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

gard us as a formidable foe, and I suspect the ruling 
authorities estimate our power as highly as it de- 
serves. The Secretary of State here, I understand, 
says they have been frightened into negotiations by 
the articles in the Richmond JUnqidrer^ threatening a 
colonial connection with England and France ; while 
others, I hear from Mr. Rives, assert that the North 
is much troubled by the proposition to make soldiers 
of slaves. I have no faith in either of these fancies, 
but have no doubt they regard us as far from being 
subdued, and are willing to treat rather than incur the 
preparations for what they conceive necessary for final 
success. An intelligent prisoner, Mr. Roulhac of Flori- 
da, recently returned, informs me that by the influence 
of his mercantile acquaintance, he was paroled and 
allowed to spend six weeks in the city of ISTew-York, 
and to travel to "Washington, etc. According to his 
observation, there is an abatement in the feelings of 
hostility to the South, and a disposition to j^eace, but 
upon the basis of reconstruction. Mr. Singleton of 
Illinois, who has been here at times for two or three 
weeks, and is a supposed quasi diplomat, but from the 
company he keej^s is more of a speculator, gives the 
same account. The Virginia delegation in Congress, 
having in view the Secretary of State, declared a 
want of confidence in the cabinet, but struck no game 
except their own Secretary of War. He has resigned, 
and Breckinridge, it is announced, is to succeed him, 
. . . . a representative of a State which has not 
ten thousand men in our army. ISTo reports are given 
from official sources of the fall of Fort Fisher. Private 



THE LAST N-INETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 115 

accounts represent it as a disgraceful affair. ... 
. . Mr. Trenholm insists on adding one hundred per 
cent to the taxes of last year, including tithes. He 
is a good merchant and has talent, but is not versed 
in the finances of a nation. General Lee has addressed 
a letter to a member of the Virginia Senate, advocating 
the enlistment of slaves as soldiers, with emancipation 
of themselves and families, and ultimately of the race. 
With such wild schemes and confessions of despair as 
this, it is high time to attempt peace, and I trust the 
commission above named may pave the way to it. . . . 
Very faithfully yours, 

W. A. Gkaham. 

RiCHMOjq-D, Feb. 5, 1865. 
My Dear Sir : The commission to confer with the 
Northern Government returned yesterday evening. I 
have not seen any of the gentlemen, but learn on good 
authority that nothing was effected of a beneficial 
nature, except that a general exchange of prisoners on 
parole mny be looked for. They were met on ship- 
board by Messrs. Lincoln and Seward in person, (in 
sight of Fortress Monroe,) who said they could enter- 
tain no proposition looking to the independence of the 
Southern States, and could only offer that these States 
should return to the Union under the Constitution in 
the existing condition of affairs, with slavery as it is, 
but liable to be abolished by an amendment of the 
Constitution. They brought also the information that 
Congi-ess, on Wednesday last, had passed a bill, by 
a vote of one hundred and eighteen to fifty-four, to 



116 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

amend the Constitution, so as to abolish slavery in 
the States, Avhich is to be submitted to the State Legis- 
latures for approval of three fourths. These officers 
are said to have exhibited great courtesy and kindness 
in the interview, Lincoln recurring to what he had 
been willing to do in the outset, and from time to 
time since, but that public opinion now demanded his 
present ultimatum. The Commissioners saw large 
numbers of black troops on their journey. I have seen 
but few persons to-day ; but the impression will be 
that there is no alternative but to prosecute the war. 
The administration is weak in the estimation of Con- 
gress, and a vote of want of confidence could be car- 
ried through the Senate if approved by those it has 
been accustomed to consider Opposition. I am not sure 
that this vote will not be carried as to the Secretary 
of State. Senator Hill left yesterday for Georgia, to 
attend the session of the Legislature, and endeavor to 
revive public confidence, etc. The committee of our 
Legislature left the evening before the return of the 
Commissioners, disposed, I believe, to await further 
progress of events. The situation is critical, and re- 
quires a guidance beyond human ken. 

Very truly yours. 

Richmond, Feb. 12, 1865. 
My Dear Sir : You ^vill have seen in the papers 
the report of the Commissioners appointed to confer 
with the United States Government, with the message 
of the President, as Avell as his speech at the African 
Church, the addresses ol the Secretary of State, and 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF t^IIE WAR. 117 

of several members of Congress, at a public meeting 
to give expression to sentiment on the result of the 
mission. Judging from these, and the editorials 
of the newspapers of this city, there would appear 
to be nothing in contemplation but hella^ horrida 
hella. I was not present at any of these proceed- 
ings, but learn that the assemblages were large and 
apparently very enthusiastic ; but no volunteers were 
called for, nor any offered. Instead of that, labored 
arguments were made in favor of making soldiers of 
slaves. The speech of the Secretary of State went far 
beyond the newspaper reports, and its imprudences in 
his situation are the subject of severe criticism. He 
declared among other things, " that unless the slaves 
were armed, the cause was lost ;" with revelations of 
details of the attempt at negotiation, exceedingly im- 
politic. All these demonstrations are likely to pass 
oif as the idle wind, and the great question still re- 
mains. What is to be done to save the country ? Mr. 
Stephens and Judge Campbell refused to make any 
public addresses. The former has gone home, and it 
is understood does not design to speak in public there, 
though the papers have announced the contrary. . . . 
It seems they were under instructions not to treat ex- 
cept upon the basis of independence, and carried ro- 
mantic propositions about an armistice, couj^led with 
an alliance to embark in a war with France, to main- 
tain the Monroe doctrine, and expel Maximilian from 
Mexico. Lincoln was courteous and apparently anxi- 
ous for a settlement ; but firm in the announcement 
that nothinoj could be entertained till our difficulties 



118 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAS. 

were adjusted, and that upon the basis of a restoration 
of the Union. That as far as he had power as Presi- 
dent, amnesty, exemption from confiscation, etc., should ' 
be freely extended ; reviewed his announcements in 
his inaugural, proclamations, messages, etc., to show 
what he considered his liberality to the South, and 
that he could unsay nothing that he had said. As to 
slavery, it must stand on the legislation of Congress, 
with the proposed amendments to the Constitution, 
which he informed them had passed both Houses, but 
Avhich the dissent of ten States could still reject. 
These terms not being agreed to, he and Seward rose 
to depart, but with a manifestation of disappointment, 
as inferred by my informant, that propositions were 
not submitted on our side. Thus terminated the con- 
ference. There is a widening breach between the Presi- 
dent and Congress ; a growing opinion on their part 
that he is unequal to the present duties of his position^ 
while there is a division of opinion as to the prospect 
of.relief in a different line of policy and under different 
auspices. The military situation is threatening. Grant 
has been reenforced. Sherman seems to advance 
almost without impediment, and with divided coun- 
sels among our generals in that quarter, Judge Camp- 
bell thinks another mission should be sent ; but re- 
gards it as out of the question in the temper and with 
the committals of the President. Our Legislature has 
adjourned; that of. Georgia meets this week. Speed 
in affairs is necessary. There is not time for States 
to act in concert, (without which they can effect noth- 
ing,) nor sufficient harmony of views here for action 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 119 

without the executive; and many, perhaps a majority, 
are for the most desperate expedients. A short time 
will bring forth important results. I have written 
very freely, but in confidence that you would observe 
the proper secrecy. I would be glad to have any sug- 
gestions that may occur to you. Opportunities for 
consultation here are not so numerous as I could wish. 

Very truly yours. 

Richmond, Feb. 22, 1865. 

My Dear Sir : A bill to conscribe 

negroes in the army was postponed indefinitely in the 
Senate yesterday, in secret session. I argued it at 
lenorth as unconstitutional accordinoj to the Dred Scott 
decision as well as inexpedient and dangerous. A bill 
for this purpose, which had passed the House, was 
laid on the table. There may be attempts to revive 
this fatal measure. All the influence of the adminis- 
tration and of General Lee was brought to bear, but 
v/ithout success. An effort is being made to instruct 
the Virginia senators to vote for it. Mr. Benjamin 
has been writing letters to induce the brigades of the 
army to declare for it. I rather regret that I did not 
join in a vote of want of confidence in him, which 
only failed. Had I gone for it, I learn it would have 
been carried by a considerable majority. 

The military situation is exceedingly critical. There 
will be no stand made short of Greensboro ; whether 

there successfully, is doubtful Opinion 

is growing in favor of more negotiations, to rescue 
the wreck of our affairs, if military results continue 



120 THE LAST NIXETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

adverse. I shall meet some friends this evening on 
that topic. I write in haste. As to matters of confi- 
dence, please observe the proper secrecy. It is the 
duty of the people to sustain the war till their author- 
ities, Confederate or State, determine otherwise. But 
in the mean time there is no reason for inflamed reso- 
lutions to do what may be found impossible, and which 
they may be compelled to retract. 

Very truly yours, 

W. A. Gkaham. 

The publication of further extracts from these repre- 
sentative letters must be deferred to the succeeding 
chapter. Meanwhile the thoughtful student of the 
events of that day will recognize the direct hand of 
Providence in the continuation of the war till the utter 
failure of our resources was so fully manifest that 
peace, when it came, should be unchallenged, profound, 
and icniversal. 



CHAPTER IX. 

STATE OP PABTIES — THE FEELING OF THE PEOPLE — THE 
" PEACE " PARTY — EVIPORTANT LETTER FROM GOVERNOR VANCE 
IN JANUARY, 1864 — HIS REELECTION — THE WAR PARTY — 
THE PEACE PARTY — THE MODERATES — GOVERNOR GRAHAM'S 
LETTER OF IMARCH, 1865 — EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. 

He "who would write a history of public events 
passing in his own day will find, among the many 
obstacles in the way of a clear and correct delineation, 
that he is continually met with doubts and hesitations 
in his own mind as to the impartiality of his views 
and decisions. The prejudices of party feeling must 
inevitably confuse and blind to some extent even the 
clearest judgment; and while a consciousness of this 
renders the faithful historian doubly anxious to exer- 
cise strict impartiality, he will find himself embarrassed 
by the divisions and subdivisions of opinion, bewildered 
by conflicting representations, and in danger of be- 
coming involved in contradictions and inconsistencies. 
In the first chapter of these sketches it was remarked, 
with reference to the ]N'orth and the South, that there 
was too much to be forgotten and too much to be for- 
given between them, to hope at present for a fair and 
unprejudiced history of the war on either side. In re- 



122 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

lation to the parties that existed among ourselves dur- 
ing the war, it is equally true that the time has not yet 
arrived for a fair statement or comparison of their re- 
spective merits or demerits. While there is much 
that may be written and much that has been written 
which may with propriety be given to the public, there 
is much more that must at present be suppressed or 
receive only a passing notice. More especially is this 
true in regard to the secession party and its adherents. 
Yet in presenting even these slight sketches of the 
state of things during the war in North-Carolina, it 
would be impossible to ignore them, and unfair to re- 
]3resent them as without influence among us. For 
while it is incontestably true that the great mass of 
our people engaged reluctantly in the war, and hailed 
the prospect of peace and an honorable reunion, yet 
there was at the same time hardly a town in the State 
or an educated and refined community which did not 
furnish their- quota of those who, without havmg been 
original secessionists^ yet had thrown themselves. with 
extreme ardor on the side of the Southern States rights, 
and were ready to go all lengths in support of the 
war, and who are even now, though helpless and power- 
less, unwilling to admit that they were either in the 
wi'ong or in the minority. "With many of them it was 
the triumph of heroic sentiment and generous feel- 
ing over the calmer suggestions of reason, for they 
were chiefly among ojir most refined and highly culti- 
vated citizens. As a party, if not numerous, they 
were well organized and compact ; they were socially 
and politically conspicuous, and did most of. the writ- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 123 

ing and talking. They differed from the great body 
of their fellow-citizens, chiefly in the intensity of their 
loyalty toward President Davis and his government — 
being resolved to support him at all hazards — and in 
the implacable temper they manifested toward the 
common enemy. One who mingled freely with both 
parties, and by turns sympathized with both, and who 
would fain do justice to both, will find it impossible to 
adjust their conflicting representations, and at the same 
time observe the prudent reticence which our present 
circunxstances imperatively demand. Two of the most 
prominent and influential leaders of the war party, 
Governors Ellis and Winslow, have passed beyond the 
reach of earthly tribunals, and of the living actors it is 
obvious that no mention can now be made, Yery dif- 
ferent but no less cogent reasons impose a similar reti- 
cence in relation to the more numerous but not more 
respectable or influential organization known as the 
" Peace Party " of the last eighteen months of the war, 
and as " Union men. of the straitest sect " at this day. 
Of this party. Governor Holden is the admitted found- 
er and the present head, and Senator Pool his most 
prominent exponent. A representation of their princi- 
ples and their history should be made by themselves. 
They possess all the materials and all the abilities 
requisite for the work, and they owe it to themselves 
and to the public to place it on record for the judg- 
ment of their cotemporaries and of jDOsterity. They 
and they alone are competent to the performance of 
this duty in the best manner. The precise date of the 
earliest formation of this pai-ty is given in the follow- 



124 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

iiig letter from Governor Vance, which is inserted here, 
not only as affording a clear view of the principles 
which guided his course of action, but as enabling the 
reader to comprehend Governor Graham's policy, ex- 
hibited in the farther extracts from his correspond- 
ence. 

This letter was addressed by Governor Vance to the 
same friend who received the letter given in my first 
number, and is marked by the same clearness and 
energy of thought, the same generosity of feeling, and 
the same unaffected ardor of patriotism which char- 
acterize all of the Governor's letters that I have been 
privileged to see. 

Raleigh, January 2, 1864. 

My Deak Sie : The final plunge which I have been 
dreading and avoiding — that is to separate me from a 
large number of my political friends, is about to be 
made. It is now a fixed policy of Mr. Hold en and 
others to call a convention in May to take North-Car- 
olina back to the United States, and the agitation has 
already begun. Resolutions advocating this course 
were prepared a few days ago in the Standard office, 
and sent to Johnson county to be passed at a public 
meeting next week ; and a series of meetings are to be 
held all over the State. 

For any cause now existing, or likely to exist, I can 
never consent to this course. 

Never. But should it be inevitable, and I be unable 
to prevent it, as I have no right to suppose I could, be- 
lieving that it would be ruinous alike to the State and 
the Confederacy, producing war and devastation at 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 125 

home, and that it would steep the name of ^N'orth-Car- 
oliiia in infamy, and make her memory a reproach 
among the nations, it is my determination quietly to 
retire to the army and find a death which Avill enable 
my children, to say that their father was not consent- 
ing to their degradation. This may sound a little wild 
and romantic — to use no stronger expression — but it is 
for your eye only. I feel, sir, in many respects, as a 
son toward you ; and when the many acts of kindness 
I have received at your hands are remembered, and 
the parental interest you have always manifested for 
my welfare, the feeling is not unnatural. I therefore 
approach you frankly in this matter. 

I will not present the arguments against the pro- 
posed jDroceeding. There is something to be said on 
both sides. We are sadly 23ushed to the wall by the 
enemy on every side, it is true. That can be answered 
by military men and a reference to history. Many 
people have been worse ofi*, infinitely, and yet tri- 
umphed. Our finances and other material resources 
are not in worse condition than were those of our fa- 
thers in lYSO-'Sl, though repudiation is inevitable. 
Almost every argument against the chances of our suc- 
cess can be answered but one : that is the cries of wo- 
men and little children for bread ! Of all others, that 
is the hardest for a man of humane sentiments to meet, 
especially when the sufierers rejoin to your appeals to 
their patriotism, " You, Governor, have plenty ; your 
children have never felt want." Still, no great politi- 
cal or moral blessing ever has been or can be attained 
without suffering. Such is our moral constitution, that 



126 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

liberty and independence can only be gathered of blood 
and misery, sustained and fostered by devoted patriot- 
ism and heroic manhood. This requires a deep hold 
on the popular heart ; and whether our people are will- 
ing to pay this price for Southern independence, I am 
somewhat inclined to doubt. But, sir, in tracing the 
sad story of the backing down, the self-imposed degra- 
dation of a great people, the historian shall, not say it 
was due to the weakness of their Governor, and that 
Saul was consenting nnto their death ! Neither do I 
desire, for the sake of a sentiment, to involve others in 
a ruin which they might avoid by following more ig- 
noble counsels. As God liveth, there is nothing whicli 
I would not do or dare for the people who so far be- 
yond my deserts have honored me. But in resisting 
this attempt to lead them back, humbled and degraded, 
to the arms of their enemies, who have slaughtered 
their sons, outraged their daughters, and wasted their 
fields with fire, and lay them bound at the feet of a 
master who promises them only life, provided they w^ill 
swear to uphold his administration, and surrender to 
the hangman those whom they themselves placed in 
the position which constitutes their crime — in resist- 
ing this, I say, I feel that I am serving fhem truly, 
worthily. 

In approaching this, the crisis of ISTorth-Carolina's 
fate, certainly of my own career, I could think of no 
one to whom I could more appropriately go for advice 
than yourself for the reasons before stated. If you can 
say any thing to throw light on my path, or enable me 
to avoid the rocks before me, I shall be thankful. My 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 127 

great anxiety now, as I can scarcely hope to avert the 
contemplated action of the State, is to prevent civil 
war, and to preserve life and property as far as may be 
possible. With due consideration on the part of pub- 
lic men, which I fear is not to be looked for, this might 
be avoided. It shall be my aim, under God, at all 
events. 

All the circumstances considered, do you think I 
ought again to be a candidate ? It is a long time to the 
election, it is true, but the issue will be upon the coun- 
try by spring. My inclination is to take the stump 
early, and spend all my time and strength in trying 
to warm and harmonize the people. 

Believe me, my dear sir, yours sincerely, 

Z. B. Yance. 

Governor Vance, it is well known, took the field 
against this new j^arty ; and in the overwhelming ma- 
jority with which he was reelected the following sum- 
mer, convincing proof was given that much as North- 
Carolinians desu'ed peace, they were not willing to 
take irregular or revolutionary measures to obtain it, 
and that they preferred even a hopeless war to a dis- 
honorable reunion. 

Besides the Moderates, who constituted the bulk of 
the people, and the War Party, and the " Peace Party," 
there were many besides of a class which can never be 
influential, but may well be counted among the impedi- 
menta of all great movements; who, unable to ans^ver 
the arguments of either side, could give no counsel to 



128 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

either, though they were always prepared to blame any 
misuccessful movement made in any direction. These, 
overwhelmed by doubts and fears in the moment of peril, 
could only wring their hands in hopeless inefficiency. 
Surrounded with such conflicting elements, those who 
fain would have led the peoj^le " by a right way," found 
the obstacles interposed by party spirit almost insur- 
mountable. In presenting Governor Graham, therefore, 
as a representative North-Carolinian, it must be borne 
in mind that there were many men among us true and 
patriotic, but so ardently devoted to the cause of the 
Confederacy as to remain to the last implacable toward 
any attempt at negotiation, who looked upon all sug- 
gestions tending that way as dastardly and traitorous 
to the Southy and who, backed by the whole civil and 
military Confederate authorities, were ready to brand 
and arrest as traitors the authors of any such move. 

With these reflections, I resume the extracts from 
Governor Graham's correspondence, assured that his 
inaction in the momentous crisis, deprecated as it was 
at the time, by one party as evincing too little energy 
in behalf of peace, if not a disposition to continue the 
war ; and reviled by the other as indicative of a dis- 
position toward inglorious surrender and reconstruc- 
tion, was in eflfect masterly^ that masterly inactivity 
with which he who surveys the tumult of conflict from 
an eminence, may foresee and calmly await the ap- 
proaching and inevitable end. 

EicmrOND, March 12, 1865. 
My Dear Sir: The passing week will develop im- 
portant events. The President has requested Con- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 129 

gress to prolong its session to receive commimications 
which he desires to make. Three days have since 
elapsed, but nothing but routine messages have thus 
far been received. I am not at liberty to anticipate 
what is coming, or j)robably to reveal it when re- 
ceived ; but doubtless the whole horizon of the situ- 
ation will be surveyed, and an occasion presented for 
determinate action as to the future. In my opinion, 
he is powerless, and can neither make peace for our 
security nor war with success. But 7ious verrons. 

The bill to arm slaves has become a law. It pro- 
fesses to take them only with the consent of their mas- 
ters ; and in the event of failure in this, to call on the 
State authorities to fuTnish. I trust no master in 
North-Carolina will volunteer or consent to begin this 
process of abolition, as I feel very confident the Gen- 
eral Assembly will not. 

We hear the enemy are near Fayetteville, notwith- 
standing the check to Kilpatrick by Hampton. I 
think our officers of state, except the Governor, should 
not leave Raleigh, but should claim protection for the 
State property from fire or other destruction, if the 
enemy come there. A raid of Sheridan's force has 
been above this city some days, destroying the James 
River Canal and other property ; and last night, at 
one A.M., the alarm-bell was rung, calling out the local 
force for the defense of the city, it being reported that 
the enemy was within seven miles. It is said to-day 
that the party has joined Grant below Richmond. 
Commander Hollins and several citizens are said to 
have been killed by thera. 



130 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. ' 

You may conceive that the path of those intrusted 
with the great interests of the people is beset with 
difficulties ; but it must be trodden with what serenity 
and wisdom we may command. 

Very truly yours, W. A. Geaham. 

HiLLSBOEO, N. C, March 26, 1865. 
My Dear Sir : I am much indebted for your note 

by Dr. H . I arrived at home on'^'this day week, 

and the next day went to Raleigh to have an inter- 
view with the Governor on the subject-matter referred 
to in your letter. The result was a convocation of the 
Council of State to assemble to-morrow. The Legis- 
lature of Virginia has taken a recess until the twenty- 
ninth instant, and I think it very important that that 
of North-Carolina shall be in session as early there- 
after as possible. The war is now nearly reduced to 
a contest between these two States and the United 
States. The military situation is by no means favor- 
able, and I perceive no solution of our difficulties ex- 
cept through the action of the States. The public 
men in the service of the Confederacy are so tram- 
meled by the parts they have borne in past events, 
and their apprehensions as to a consistent record, that 
the government does not answer the present necessi- 
ties of the country. I wish, if possible, to see you in 
the course of this week for a full conference on these 
important topics. The Governor is, I think, reason- 
able, but was much surprised by some of the facts I com- 
municated to him. I do not know the disposition of 
the Council. If the Legislature shall be convened, I 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAR. 131 

will attend their session, and if desired, will address 
them in private meeting. Much pertaining to the 
pre-sent position of affairs can not with propriety be 
communicated to the public. 

I received last night a telegram from my son James, 
informing me that his brothers John and Robert were 
both wounded — the former in both legs, the latter in 
the left, in an attack by General Lee on the left of 
Grant's line yesterday morning. I am expecting an- 
other message to-night from General Ransom, which 
may occasion me to go to Petersburg to attend to 
them. Lee was successful in surprising the enemy 
and driving him from three lines of intrenchments 
and taking five hundred prisoners ; but by a concen- 
trated fire of the artillery of the foe, was compelled to 
retire. James says he was unhurt. 

I am also under a great necessity to go to the Ca- 
tawba, but with a large force of reserve artillery all 
around us, and some ajDprehensions of the advance of 
Sherman, I know not which way to turn. 

I had a conversation with Governor Morehead at 
Greensboro, and believe he realizes the situation. 

Very sincerely yours, W. A. Geaham. 

If the Legislature of Virginia convened at Richmond 
on the twenty -ninth of March, 1865, small time was 
allowed for their deliberations ; and it would have 
been of very little practical utility if the General As- 
sembly of North-Carolina had been summoned to cor- 
respond with it at that date. On the second of April, 
Richmond was evacuated. Our President and his 



132 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

cabinet were fugitives iu the clear starlight of that 
woful night ; our capital was delivered over to a mob, 
and in flames. But we did not even dream of it. It 
was more than a week before the certain intelligence 
was received in Central Carolina, and even then many 
doubted. Dismal rumors from Lee's army, of the fall 
of Petersburg, of the fate of Richmond, were whis- 
pered, but were contradicted every hour by those 
whose wish was father to the thought that there was 
hope yet, that all was not lost. We were indeed in 
the very turning-point and fatal crisis of the great 
Southern States rights struggle ; but we hardly real- 
ized through what an era of history we were living. 
In the quiet and secluded village in which I now 
write, the uninterrupted order of our daily life afford- 
ed a strong confirmation of the great English histori- 
an's saying, that in all wars, after all, but a compara- 
tively small portion of a nation are actually engaged 
or affected. The children plan their little fishing- 
parties, the plow-boy whistles in the field, the wed- 
ding-supper is provided, and the daily course of ex- 
ternal domestic life in general flows as smoothly as 
ever, except immediately in the track of the armies. 
It is not indifference nor insensibility. It is the wise 
and beneficent order of Providence that it should be 
with the body politic as with our physical frame. 
One part may suffer mutilation, and though a sympa- 
thetic thrill of anguish pervade every nerve of the 
whole body, yet the natural functions are not sus- 
pended in any other member. Men must lie down, 
and sleep, and eat, and go through the ordinary rou- 



THE LAST NTNETY DATS OF THE WAR. 133 

tine of daily duty in circumstances of the most tragic 
interest. It is only on the stage that they tear their 
hair and lie prostrate on the ground. So we still ex- 
changed our Confederate money with each other — the 
bright, new, clean twenties and tens, which we tried 
to believe were worth something, for there was still a 
faint magical aroma of value hovering round those 
promises to pay " six months after a treaty of peace 
with the United States ;" |25 a yard for country 
jeans, $30 a yard for calico, $10 for a pair of cotton 
socks, $20 for a wheat-straw hat, $25 for a bushel of 
meal, and $10 to have a tooth pulled, and very cheap 
at that — if we had only known all. Mothers were 
still jjreparing boxes for their boys in the army ; the 
farmer got his old battered tools in readiness for his 
spring's work ; the merchant went daily to preside 
over the scanty store of thread, needles, and buttons, 
remnants of calico, and piles of homespun, which now 
constituted his stock in trade ; and our little girls still 
held- their regular meetings for knitting soldiers' 
socks, all unconscious of the final crash so near, while 
the peach-trees were all abloom and sj^ring was put- 
ting on all her bravery. 



CHAPTER X. 

GENERAL JOHNSTON PREPARINa TO UNCOVER RALEIGH— URGENT 
LETTER FROM GOVERNOR SWAIN TO GOVERNOR GRAHAM — 
GOVERNOR GRAHAJi'S REPLY — A PROGRAMME OP OPERATIONS 
AGREED UPON — FINALLY GOVERNORS GRAHAM AND SWAIN 
START FOR SHERMAN'S HEADQUARTERS. 

When the intention of General Johnston to uncov- 
er the city of Raleigh became generally known, and 
when the retrograde movement of his army com- 
menced in the direction of Chapel Hill, and along the 
line of the Central Railroad; when General Wheel- 
er's troopers, followed hard by Kilpatrick's command, 
j^om'ed along our country roads, and the people gave 
half of their provision to the retreating friends, and 
were stripped of the other half by the advancing foe ; 
there were few thoughtful persons in Orange county 
whose waking and sleeping hours were not perturbed 
and restless. 

What could be done ? Whither were we tending ? 
What was to be the result ? An hour or two of anx 
ious reflection on such questions before day on the 
morning of April 8th, induced Governor Swain, Pre- 
sident of the University of North Carolina — than 
whom, though immured in the cloisters of a venerable 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 135 

literary institution, no man in the Confederacy took a 
keener interest in the progress of public events, sur- 
veyed the action of parties with more sagacious ap- 
prehension, or was oftener consulted by leading men — 
induced him to rise at an early hour and make another 
effort to influence the public authorities of the State 
to adopt immediate measures for saving what remain- 
ed of the country from devastation, and the seat of 
government and the University from the conflagration 
v/hich had overwhelmed the capitals of our sister 
States. He wrote the subjoined letter to Governor 
Graham, at daylight ; but such was the apprehension 
of the time, that it was difficult to find a messenger, 
and still more difficult to procure a horse to bear it 
from the University to Hillsboro. By ten that morn- 
ing it was on the way, and by six in the evening Gov- 
ernor Graham's reply was received. 

Chapel Hill, ) 

Saturday Moiiiing, April 8, 1865. ) 

My Dear Sir : Since the organization of the State 
government, in December, 1776, North-Carolina has 
never passed through s.o severe an ordeal *as that we 
are now undergoing. Unless something can be done 
to prevent it, suffTering and privation, and death — 
death in the battle-field, and death in the most horri- 
ble of all forms, the slow and lingering death of fam- 
ine, are imminent to thousands, not merely men, but 
women and children. 

The General Assembly, by its own resolution, is not 
to meet until the 16th of May. If the Governor shall 



136 THE LAST NINETY DATS OE THE WAR. 

desire to convene the members at an earlier day, it 
may not, in the present state of the country, be possi- 
ble to effect his purpose. Some of the members will 
find it impossible to reach Raleigh in the existing 
state of the railroads, others may be in danger of arrest 
if they shall attempt it in any way, and there are few 
who can leave home without peril to person or prop- 
erty. AVe are compelled, then, to look to other sources 
for relief from the dangers by which we are environed. 
In ancient times, when the most renowned of republics 
experienced similar trials, the decree went forth : 

" Viderent C07isules ne quid detrimenti respuhlica 
caperetP 

A dictatorship is, in my opinion, repugnant to every 
principle of civil liberty, and I would neither propose 
nor support one under any existing circumstances. 
But something must be done, and done immediately, 
or the opening campaign will be brief and fatal. An- 
archy may ensue, and from anarchy the descent to a 
military despotism is speedy and natural. 

The State has no such citizen to whom all eyes turn 
with deep anxiety and confident hope for the counsel 
and guidance demanded by the crisis, as yourself. 
Fully satisfied of this fact, I venture to suggest the 
propriety of your meeting me in Raleigh on Monday 
morning, and inviting a conference with the Governor 
on the state of public affairs. He numbers among his 
many friends none who have yielded him earlier, more 
constant, or more zealous support, in the trying cir- 
cumstances in which Providence has been pleased to 
place him, than ourselves. I am the oldest of his pre- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 137 

decessors in his office, and about the time of your en- 
trance into public life, was summoned to the discharge 
of similar duties in the midst of similar perils. I 
have had from him too numerous and decided proofs 
of confidence, respect, and affection, to doubt that he 
will listen to me kindly ; and I know that he will re- 
ceive you with as great cordiality and give as favora- 
ble consideration to your suggestions as he would 
yield to any citizen or functionary in the Confederacy. 
Perhaps he may be disposed not only to hear us, but 
to invite all his predecessors — Morehead, Manly, Reid, 
Bragg, and Clark — -to unite with us in consultation at 
a time and under circumstances calling for the exer- 
cise of the highest powers of statesmanship. At pre- 
sent, I do not deem it incumbent on me, even if 
my views were more fully matured, to intimate the 
ideas I entertain of what must be done, and done 
promptly, to arrest the downward tendency of public 
affairs. 

I content myself with simply urging that you shall 
meet me in Raleigh, as above proposed, on Monday, 
if it be possible, and if you concur with me in opinion 
that we are in the midst of imminent perils. 
Yours very sincerely, 

D. L. Swain. 

HiLLSBORO, April 8, 1865. 

Mt Dear Sir : Yours of this date has just been 
received, and I entirely concur in yom- estimate of the 
dangers that environ us. 

I left Richmond thoroughly convinced that — 



138 THE LAST NINETY DA.TS OF THE WAR. 

1st. Independence for the Southern Confederacy 
was perfectly hopeless. 

2d. That through the administration of Mr. Davis 
we could expect no peace, so long as he shall be sup- 
plied with the resources of war ; and that 

3d. It was the duty of the State government imme- 
diately to move for the purpose of effecting an adjust-, 
ment of the quarrel with the United States. 

I accordingly remained at home but twenty-four 
hours (that being the Sabbath, and having had no 
sleep the night preceding) before repairing to Raleigh 
to lay before the Governor such information as I pos- 
sessed, and to urge him to convene the General As- 
sembly immediately. I told him that Richmond would 
fall in less than thirty days, and would be followed 
probably by a rout or dispersion of Lee's army for 
want of food, if for no other cause. That the Confed- 
erate Government had no plan or policy beyond this 
event, although it was generally anticipated. That I 
had reason to believe that General Lee was anxious 
for an accommodation. That Johnston had not and 
could not raise a sufficient force to encounter Sher- 
man. That I had conferred with the President, and 
found him, though in an anxious frame of mind, con- 
strained by the scruple that he could not " commit 
suicide " by treating his Government out of existence, 
nor even ascertain for the States what terms would 
be yielded, provided they consented to readopt the 
Constitution of ^he United States. ' That the wisest 
and best men with whom I had been associated, or 
had conversed, were anxious for a settlement; but 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 139 

were so trammeled by former committals, and a false 
pride, or other like causes, that they were unable to 
move themselves, or in their States, but were anxious 
that others should ; and that it was now the case of a 
beleaguered garrison before a superior force, consider- 
ing the question whether it was best to capitulate on 
terms, or hold out to be put to the sword on a false 
point of honor. 

The Governor was evidently surprised by my state- 
ment of facts, and, I apprehend, incredulous at least as 
to my conclusions. He agreed to consider the sub- 
ject, and to convene the council on that day week. I 
heard nothing of their action, and being solicitous on 
the subject, on Thursday last I visited Raleigh again, 
found the Governor on the cars here returning from 
Statesville, and we journeyed together, and I dined 
with him after arrival. He said he had purposed visit- 
ing me, but it had been neglected ; that a bare quorum 
of his council attended the meeting, and being equally 
divided, he had not summoned the Legislature ; but 
that Mr. Gilmer, whom I had advised him to consult, 
and every body else now he believed agreed with me 
in opinion. He had recently seen Mr. Gilmer, and he 
suggested to him to solicit an interview with General 
Sherman on the subject of peace. I told him that 
President Davis would probably comj^lain of this, and 
should be apprised of it if held. He replied that this 
of course should be done. I suggested, however, that 
even if this course were taken, he should be in a posi- 
tion to act independently of the President, and there- 
fore should convene the General Assembly. On this 



140 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

he was reluctant, but finally agreed to call the Coun- 
cil of State agahi. I told him in parting, that if, in 
any event, he supposed I could be useful to him, to no- 
tify me, and I would attend him. I am induced to be- 
lieve that the result of the deliberation of the council 
was not disagreeable to him ; but since the fall of 
Richmond he has a truer conception of the situation. 
I wrote him a note on the day the council met, advis- 
ing him of your concurrence in the necessity of calling 
the General Assembly. He went, on Friday last, to 
witness a review of Johnston's army, and proposed to 
me to accompany him. I declined ; not seeing any 
good to be accomplished there. General Johnston I 
know, and appreciate him highly. 

I hope you will g6, as you propose, to see Governor 
Vance. I thought of inviting you to my first inter- 
vieAV with him ; and if he shall contrive a meeting 
with Sherman, I hope you may be present. I do not 
think it necessary, perhaps not advisable myself, to 
visit him again on these topics. My conversations 
with him were very full and earnest. I told him I 
should attend the session of the General Assembly, 
and if desired would address them in secret session ; 
that I had had confidential conversations with a com- 
mittee of the Virginia Legislature, which had taken a 
recess for ten days, and that it was important to act 
in concert with that body ; that my colleagues in the 
House, the Leaches, Turner, Ramsay, Fuller, and Lo- 
gan, were ready to call a session of the Assembly to- 
gether by advertisement ; but all this had no effect iu 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE AVAR. 141 

procuring a recommendation to the council in favor 
of the call. 

I do not perceive that any thing will be gained by 
a convention of those who have held the office of chief 
magistrate. . . . Prejudices are still rife, and the 
poison of party sj^irit yet lurks in the sentiments of 
many otherwise good men, who swear by the Admin- 
istration, and will wage indefinite war while other 
people can be found to fight it. 

%• Suppose you come to my house to-inorrow, and take 
the cars from here next morning. There is much to 
say that I can not write. I set off to Chapel Hill this 
morning to see you ; bj^t riding first to the depot to 
inquire for ncAvs, thought I had intelligence of my 
sons in the army. This proved a mistake, but pre- 
vented my visit. I fear that John and Robert and 
my servant Davy fell into the enemy's hands on the 
evacuation of Petersburg. They were at the house 
of William R. Johnson, Jr., and doing well. Cooke's 
brigade, in which James is a captain, was hotly en- 
gaged in the action of Sunday. I have no tidings of 
his fate. Hoping to see you soon, I remain, yours 
very truly, W. A. Geaham. 

Governor Swain, in compliance with Governor Gra- 
ham's request that he would take Hillsboro in his 
way to Raleigh, spent the next day at his liouse in 
Hillsboro, in consultation as to the best mode of ef- 
fecting their common purpose. They agreed upon 



142 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

the course of action indicated in the following outline 
drawn up by Governor Graham ; 

My Deae Sir : Referring to our conversation in re- 
lation to the critical and urgent condition of our af- 
fairs as regards the public enemy, I am of opinion 
that — 

1st. The General Assembly should be convened at 
the earliest day practicable. 

2d. That i/hen convened, it should pass resolutions 
expressive of a desire for opening negotiations for 
peace, anci stopping the effusion of blood ; and invit- 
ing the other States of the South to unite in the move- 
ment. ^ 

3d. That to effect this object, it should elect com- 
missioners to treat with the Government of the United 
States, and report the result to a convention, which 
should be at once called by the Legislature to wield 
the sovereign power of the State in any emergency 
that may arise out of the changing state of erents. 

4th. That in the event of Sherman's advance upon 
the capital, or indeed without that event, let the Gov- 
ernor propose a confei'ence, or send a commission to 
treat with him for a suspension of hostilities, until 
the further action of the State shall be ascertained in 
regard to the termination of the war. 

All this I should base upon the doctrine of the 
Presidefit of the Confederate States, that he conceives 
it inconsistent with his duty to entertain negotiations 
for peace except upon the condition of absolute inde- 
pendence to the Southern Confederacy, with all the 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAR. 143 

territories claimed as belonging to each State com- 
prising it, and should give him the earliest information 
of the proceedings in progress. 

Yery truly yours, W. A. Gkaham. 

April 9, 1865. 

At seven the next (Monday) morning, Governor 
Swain took the train from Hillsboro to Kaleigh, dined 
with Governor Vance, and at the close of a long and 
earnest conference, the latter agreed to carry out the 
scheme submitted if the concurrence of General John- 
ston could be obtained. He promised to ride out im- 
mediately to General Johnston's headquarters and 
consult him upon the subject. The next morning he 
authorized Governor Swain to telegraph Governor 
Graham and request his presence. The latter re- 
sponded promptly that he would come down in the 
eleven o'clock train that night, and Governor Swain 
spent the night with Governor Yance in anxious ex- 
pectation of his arrival. The train failed to arrive 
until three o'clock on Wednesday morning. Governor 
Swain, at early dawn, found Governor Yance writing 
dispatches by caMle -light, and Governor Graham was 
at the door before sunrise. Mrs. Yance and her child- 
ren had retired from Raleigh to a place of supposed 
greater safety, and the three gentlemen, together with 
Colonel Burr, of Governor Yance's staff, were the only 
occupants of the executive mansion. After an early 
breakfast, they went to the capitol, where a communi- 
cation from Governor Yance to General Sherman was 
prepared. General Johnston, in the mean time, had 



144 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 

retired in the direction of Hillsboro, and General Har- 
dee was the officer of highest. grade then in Raleigh. 
He promptly accejDted an invitation from Governor 
Vance to be present at a conference, prepared a safe- 
conduct through his lines for Governors Swain and 
Graham, who undertook the commission to General 
Sherman ; and by ten o'clock, attended by three of * 
the Governor's staff — Surgeon-General Warren, Colonel 
Burr, and Major Devereux — they left Raleigh in a spe- 
cial train, bearing a flag of truce, for General Sherman's 
headquarters. Governor Bragg, Mr. Moore, and Mr. 
Raynor had all been consulted in relation to the 
course proposed to be pursued, and all had concurred 
most heartily in its propriety and necessity. There 
were others who were not consulted, who nevertheless 
suspected the design of those concerned in these con- 
ferences ; and one of them' is understood to have kept 
President Davis, who was then in Greensboro, regu- 
larly advised by telegraph of all, and more than all, 
that was contemplated by the embassy. 

The fate of the mission, and its final results, form, as 
I doubt not my readers will agree, as interesting and 
important a chapter in the history of the State as has 
occurred since its organization. 



CHAPTER XI. 

RALEIGH, WHEN UNCOVEKED — THE COMMISSIONERS TO GEN- 
ERAL SHERMAN — THEY START — ARE RECALLED BY GEN- 
ERAL JOHNSTON — ARE STOPPED BY KILPATRICK'S FORCES — 
THEIR INTERVIEW WITH KILPATRICK — ARE CALLED TO 
SHERMAN'S HEADQUARTERS — HIS REPLY TO GOVERNOR 
VANCE — THE FURTHER PROCEEDINGS OF THE COMMISSION 
— A PLEASANT INCIDENT — THE COMMISSIONERS RETURN TO 
RALEIGH — GOVERNOR VANCE HAD LEFT — HIS LETTER TO 
SHERMAN — THE FEDERAL TROOPS ENTER RALEIGH — INCI- 
DENTS. 

The commissioners to General Sherman from Gov- 
ernor Vance left Raleigh on Wednesday morning, 
April twelfth, at ten o'clock, as before stated. They 
were expected to return by four o'clock that after- 
noon, at the farthest, as General Sherman was under- 
stood to be not more than fourteen miles from the 
city. 

That day Raleigh presented, perhaps, less external 
appearance of terror and confusion than might have 
been supposed. That General Sherman would airrive 
there in the course of his march, had been anticipated 
ever since his entrance into the State; and General 
Johnston, on the tenth, had given Governor Vance 
notice of his intention to uncover the city, so that 



14G THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

such preparations as could be made to meet their fate 
had been completed. An immense amount of State 
property had been removed to various points along 
the Central Kailroad. Some forty thousand blankets, 
overcoats, clothes, and English cloth equal to at least 
one hundred thousand suits complete ; leather and 
shoes equal to ten thousand pairs ; great quantities of 
cotton cloth and yarns, and cotton-cards ; six thousand 
scythe-blades ; one hundred and fifty thousand pounds 
of bacon ; forty thousand bushels of corn ; a very large 
stock of imported medical stores; and many other 
articles of great value, together with the public re- 
cords, Treasury and Literary Board, and other effects, 
were mostly deposited at Graham, Greensboro, and 
Salisbury. Governor Vance and the State officers 
under his direction had worked day and night, with 
indefatigable zeal, to effect this transportation, so that 
before mid-day on the twelfth every thing was in 
readiness. Every suggestion of ingenuity, mean- 
while, had been put in practice by the citizens in con- 
cealing their private property, though, indeed, with 
very little hope that they would escape such accom- 
plished and practiced marauders as those who com- 
posed the approaching "grand army." Men who had 
been on the qui vive, ever since leaving Atlanta, to 
discover and appropriate or wantonly destroy all of 
household treasures and valuables that lay in their 
way, or anywhere within sixty miles of their way, 
snappers-up of even such unconsidered trifles as an 
old negroes silver watch or a baby's corals — from the 
hands of such as these what was to be expected ; what 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE AVAR. 147 

nook, or cranny, or foot of inclosed ground would be 
safe from their search ! Many citizens repaired to 
Governor Yance's office for advice and comfort, and 
none left him without greater courage to meet what 
was coming. Though overburdened with cares and 
unspeai^able anxieties on this memorable day, all 
found him easy of access and ready to give prudent 
counsel to those who asked for it. He advised the 
citizens generally to remain quiet in their own houses, 
and, as far as possible, protect their families by their 
presence. He himself was resolved to await the re- 
turn of the embassy to Sherman, and learn upon what 
conditions he could remain and exercis'e the func- 
tions of his office, or if at all. 

When the train bearing the commissioners reached 
General Hampton's lines, they requested an interview 
with him. The safe-conduct from General Hardee, 
and the letter from Governor Vance to General Sher- 
man were shown him. He remarked that General 
Hardee was his superior, and that of course he yielded 
to authority, but expressed his own doubts of the pro- 
priety or expediency of the mission. He prepared a 
dispatch, however, immediately, and transmitted it by 
a courier to General Sherman, together with a note 
from Governors Graham and Swain, requesting to be 
advised of the time and place at which a conference 
might take place. 

General Hardee then retired with his staff, and the 
train moved slowly on. When at the distance, per- 
haps, of two miles, one of his couriers dashed up, halt- 
ed the train, and informed the commissioners that he 



148 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

was directed by General Hampton to say that he had 
just received an order from General Johnston to with- 
draw their safe conduct, and direct them to return to 
Kaleigh. They directed the courier to return and say 
to the General that such an order ought to be given 
personally or in writing, and that the train w^ould be 
stationary till he could be heard from. This message 
was replied to by the prompt appearance of the Gen- 
eral himself. The extreme courtesy of his manner, 
and his air and bearing confirmed the impression made 
in the previous interview, that he was a frank, and 
gallant, and chivalrous soldier. He read the copy of 
a dispatch that he had sent by a courier to General 
Sherman, which in substance was as follows : 

" General : Since my dispatch of half an hour ago, 
circumstances have occurred which induce me to give 
you no further trouble in relation to the mission of 
ex-Governors Graham and Swain. These gentlemen 
will return with the flag of truce to Raleigh." 

This dispatch he had sent immediately on receiving 
General Johnston's order to direct their return. The 
commissioners were of course surprised and disap- 
pointed. The mission was not entered upon without 
the deliberate assent and advice of General Johnston, 
after a full consultation with Governor Vance, and 
also with General Hardee's entire concurrence, and a 
safe-conduct from him in General Johnston's absence. 
The engine, however, was reversed. General Hamp- 
ton retired, and the train had proceeded slowly about 
a mile or so in the direction of Raleigh, when it was 
again halted, and this time by a detachment of a hun- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 149 

dred Spencer rifles, a portion of Kilpatrick's cavalry, 
under the command of General Atkins. The commis- 
sioners were informed that they must proceed to the 
headquarters of General Kilpatrick, distant a mile or 
more. While waiting for a conveyance they were 
courteously treated, and a band of music ordered up 
for their entertainment. After a brief interval Gen- 
eral Kilpatrick's carriage arrived for them, and they 
proceeded in it under escort to the residence of Mr. 
Fort, where the Genera? then was. He received them 
politely, examined the safe-conduct of General Har- 
dee, and the dispatches for General Sherman, and then 
remarked that the circumstances in which they were 
placed, according to the laws of war, gave him the 
right, which, however, he had not the smallest inten- 
tion of exercising, to consider them as prisoners of 
war. 

" It is true, gentlemen," said he, " that you came 
under the protection of a flag of truce, and are the 
bearers of important dispatches from your Governor 
to my Commanding General, but that gave you no 
right to cross my skirmish-line while a fight was going 
on." 

Governor Graham remarked that the circumstances 
under which they came explained themselves, and were 
their own justification. That in a special train, with 
open windows, proceeding with the deliberation proper 
to a flag of truce, with only five persons in a single 
car, they had little temptation to proceed if they had 
known, in time to stop, that they were to be ex- 
posed to a cross-fire from the skirmish-lines of the two 
armies. 



150 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

General Kilpatrick replied that all that was very- 
true, but that it was proper, nevertheless, that he 
should require them to proceed to General Sherman's 
headquarters. He then remarked that the war was 
virtually at an end, and that every man who volun- 
tarily shed blood from that time forth, would be a 
murderer ; and read a general order from General 
Sherman, congratulating the army on the surrender 
of General Lee, intelligence of which had just reached 
him by telegraph. This was •the first intimation our 
commissioners had received of this final blow to the 
Southern cause. It was indeed not unexpected, but 
no anticipation of such tidings can equal the moment 
of realization ; and to receive it under such circum- 
stances, Avhere extreme caution and self-command were 
an imperative duty, and Avhere no expression could be 
allowed to the natural feelings of anguish and dismay 
with which it filled their breasts, gave an additional 
pang. 

General Kilpatrick further stated, among other 
things, that the course pursued by General Lee was 
illustrative of the importance of regular military train- 
ing ;, that an able and skillful commander knew when 
to fight, and when it was a more imperative duty to 
surrender ; that a brave but rash and inexperienced 
officer would have sacrificed his army, and involved 
the whole country in ruin for the want of the proper 
skill to direct, and the prestige to sustain him irv the 
discharge of a duty requiring more than courage. 

After an hour or two's delay, the commissioners 
were escorted back to the train which was in waitiocr 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 151 

where they had left it, and thence proceeded to Gen- 
eral Sherman's headquarters, passing for several miles 
through open columns of large bodies of troops, amidst 
the deafening cheers with Avhich they Avelcomed the 
surrender of the great Confederate commander, and 
the arrival of a commission which, as they supposed, 
was authorized to treat for the surrender of General 
Johnston's army. 

General Sherman, attended by his aids, met the 
commission at the station-house at Clayton, and con- 
ducted them to his tent. Governor Graham presented 
the letter from Governor Vance, and entered into a 
discussion of the various points it embraced, and found 
General Sherman apparently desirous to accede to its • 
propositions as far as was possible for him, and ready 
to make an amicable and generous arrangement with 
the State government. 

I have endeavored to procure copies of all the offi- 
cial letters written by Governor Vance at this import- 
ant crisis in our affairs, but, with one exception, have 
failed. Copies of these letters, together with his let- 
ter-book then in use, with other important documents, 
were packed in a box which was captured at Greens- 
boro, and taken to Washington City, as I have else- 
where mentioned. These records will doubtless be 
restored to the State at no distant day; and our 
people will yet have proof that their Governor did all 
that man could do — I may say all that a man thwarted 
by undue interference could do — to save the State and 
her capital from outrage, and humiliation, and an- 
archy. 



152 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF TECE WAE. 

I subjoin General Sherman's reply to the letter de- 
livered by the commission : 

Headquarters Military Division ) 

OF THE Mississippi, in the Field, v 

Gully's Station, N. C, April 12, 1865. ) 

To his Excellency Z. B, Vance, Governor of the State 

of North- Carolina : 

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt 
of your communication of this date, and inclose you a 
safeguard for yourself and any members of the State 
government that choose to remain in Raleigh. I 
would gladly have enabled you to meet me here, but 
some interruption occurred to the train by the orders 
of General Johnston, after it had passed within the 
lines of my cavalry advance ; but as it came out of 
Raleigh in good faith, it shall return in good faith, 
and will in no measure be claimed by us. 

I doubt if hostilitie scan be suspended as between 
the army of the Confederate government and the one 
I command ; but I will aid you all in my power to 
contribute to the end you aim to reach— the termina- 
tion of the existing Avar. % 

I am, truly, your obedient servant, 

W. T. Sherman, 

Major-General. 

In however unfavorable a light strict regard for the 
truth of history places General Sherman as a discipli- 
narian and leader of the great army that swept the 
Southern States with a besom of destruction ; however 
dark the pictures of lawless pillage and brutal outrage, 



THE LAST NIXETY r>AYS OF THE WAK. 153 

unrestrained and uncensured by the Commanding 
General — if indeed they were not especially directed 
and approved by him and his officers ; however unen- 
viable General Sherman's fame in these respects, equal 
regard for truth demands that in representing him at 
the council-board he shall appear in a much more 
commendable aspect, exhibiting there feelings of hu- 
manity and a capacity for enlarged and generous 
statesmanship entirely worthy of a really great gen- 
eral. If General Sherman's views and plans for closing 
the war had been adopted by his government, there 
can be no doubt that peace would have been accom- 
lylislied in less than tAVO months from the surrender of 
our armies ; peace that would have been speedily fol- 
lowed by good-will in every Southern State, in spite 
of the waste and burning track of his army. 

The hope which the commissioners had entertained 
of being able to return to Raleigh on the evening of 
the same day, was now found to be impracticable, 
owing to the various delays and impediments they 
had met with. General Sherman promised that their 
detention should be as brief as possible ; but it soon 
became obvious that he intended they should spend the 
night at his headquarters. He had been promptly ad- 
vised of General Hampton's having required their re- 
turn to Raleigh, and had taken the necessary measures 
to prevent it, and was now equally determined that 
nothing should thwart the beneficial results of their 
conference, or any advantage that might accrue there- 
from. The gentlemen were in his power, and sub- 
mitted to his requisitions quietly, not cheerfully. It 



154 • THE LAST XIXETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

was intimated to them that the engine which brought 
them down required some repairs, and so soon as this 
could be effected, the train should again be at their 
service. The reply to Governor Vance's letter was 
j^laced in their hands, and a safe-conduct and permis- 
sion to proceed in the train to Hillsboro, after the 
necessary interview with Governor Vance. General 
Sherman hoped they might be able to get off by mid- 
night ; but if that should be found impossible, they 
might retire to rest, take a cup of coffee with him at 
daylight, and breakfast in Raleigh. A couple of hours 
were spent in general conversation on public affairs, 
and less exciting topics. 

At the close of the official conference between Gov- 
ernor Graham and General Sherman, Governor Swain 
remarked to the latter that, at the beginning of their 
troubles they were engaged in kindred pursuits. 
" Yes, sir," said the General. " I am aware that you 
are the President of the University of North-Carolina ; 
and I was the Superintendent of the State Military 
Academy of Louisiana." " Two or three of your boys," 
said the Governor, "were with me for a time." 
" Yes," replied the General, " and many more of yours 
have been with me during the war, who came, poor 
fellows, before they were men, and when they ought 
to have remained with you ; and they too frequentlj^ 
helped to fill my hospitals. I think, howeyer, when 
they return, they will do me the justice to tell you 
that I treated them kindly." Governor Swain in- 
quired for General Blair, remarking that he was his 
pupil in 1837. General Sherman replied that he was 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 155 

only two hours in the rear, and that he had just been 
reading terrible accounts in a Raleigh paper of his 
proceedings in Fayetteville, adding, "I will turn 
Frank over to you to answer for it in the morning." 
In connection with this, reference was made to the 
burning of Columbia. The General remarked with 
great emphasis : " I have been grossly misrepresented 
in regard to Columbia. I changed my headquarters 
eight times during that night, and with every general 
officer under my command, strained every nerve to 
stop the fire. I declare in the presence of my God 
that Hampton burned Colui^bia, and that he alone is 
responsible for it. He collected immense piles of cot- 
ton in the streets and set them on fire; the wind rose 
during the night, and dispersed the flakes of burning 
cotton among the shingle-roofs, and created a confla- 
gration beyond human control." 

At the close of the conversation General Sherman 
intimated that the gentlemen had better retire to rest ; 
that he would have them called at any hour that the 
train might be in readiness ; and that, at all events, 
they should be ready to proceed by sunrise. Gover- 
nor Graham was invited to occupy the General's tent, 
and they shared the same apartment. Every courtesy 
was extended to the other members of the commis- 
sion. 

And now occurred one of those little coincidences 
which brighten life under its best aspects, and which 
are capable of giving pleasure even in such dispiriting 
circumstances as these; which, from constitutional 
predilections, no man appreciates more highly than 



156 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAE. 

Governor Swain, and which, perhaps, for that very- 
reason, happen more frequently to him than to most 
men. One of General Sherman's aids approached the 
Governor, inviting him to go with him — that he had 
vacated his tent for his benefit. The Governor replied 
that he must object to turning him out, but would oc- 
cupy it with him with pleasure. The officer replied 
that he could find a lodging elsewhere, and wished to 
make the Governor comfortable. He then apologized 
for desiring to introduce himself, by remarking that 
no name was more familiar than Governor Swain's in 
his mother's household. The Governor inquired his 
name, and found him to be the son of a school-com- 
panion, the beloved friend of earlier years, a lady of 
rare merits and accomplishments, who had long since 
entered ujDon her rest. She, with the mother of Gov- 
ernor Vance, had been in early girlhood the Gover- 
nor's schoolmates, and competitors w^ith him for 
school distinctions in the most anxious and generous 
strife he has ever known. Governor Graham and 
Governor Swain both voted, in 1860, for the uncle of 
this gallant young officer, for President of the United 
States, as the advocate of " the Union, the Constitu- 
tion, and the enforcement of the laws," in -the vain 
hope that the evils which then threatened and have 
since overwhelmed the country might be averted. To 
such ofi*ered kindness from such a quarter, under such 
circumstances, one might well res|)ond, 

" I take thy courtesy, by Heaven, 
As freely as 'tis nobly given." 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 151 

At suni'ise the next morning the commissioners pro- 
ceeded on their return in the train, somewhat in ad- 
vau'ce of the army, with the nnderstaneling that they 
were to go to Raleigh, notify Governor Vance of the 
conditions agreed upon, and return to advise General 
Sherman of their acceptance before he should reach 
the boundaries of the city. When within a mile of 
the capital they saw the flames rising to a great height 
above the station-house, which had been first plun- 
dered and then set on fire by stragglers from the re- 
treating forces of General Wheeler. The fire put a 
sudden stop to the progress of the train. The com- 
missioners alighted, and passed around the blazing 
building in the hope of finding another train on the 
other side in which they might proceed to Hillsboro, 
on the conclusion of their business in Raleigh, but 
were disappointed. They went to the house of a 
friend at the head of Hillsboro street, but found it 
shut up, and the proprietor a refugee. They walked 
the entire length of the street, and did not see a 
human being till they reached the State House. Every 
door was shut, every window-blind was closed. The 
same absence of all signs of life, the same death-like 
silence and air of desertion, the same precautions 
against intrusion characterized Fayetteville street 
from the Capitol to the Palace. The very air seemed 
shriveled. In the brief interval that elapsed from the 
retreat of her protectors to the arrival of her foes, the 
beautiful city of Raleigh stood under the outstretched 
arms of her noble oaks, embowered in the luxuriant 
shrubbery of a thousand gardens, just touched with 



158 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

vernal bloom and radiance — stood with folded hands 
and drooping head, in all the mortal anguish of sus- 
pense, in a silence that spoke, awaiting her fate. 

Governor Vance, it was soon ascertained, had left 
the city, together w^ith all the State officers, having 
heard the night before that the commission had been 
captured, and detained as prisoners of war. Despair- 
ing then of obtaining any terms from General Sher- 
man, and unwilling to surrender himself uncondition- 
ally into his hands, in entire uncertainty of what 
treatment he might expect. Governor Vance had de- 
cided to leave for Hillsboro, after making every possi- 
ble arrangement for the surrender of the city by the 
Mayor and Council. He wrote the following letter 
to General Sherman, to be delivered by the city au- 
thorities : 

State of ISTorth-Caeolina, ) 

■* Executive Department, >• 

Raleigh, April 12, 1865. ) 

General W. T. Sherman, Commanding United States 

Forces : 

General : His Honor, Mayor William B. Harrison, 
is authorized to surrender to you the city of Raleigh. 
I have the honor to request the extension of your 
favor to its defenseless inhabitants generally ; and es- 
pecially to ask your protection for the charitable in- 
stitutions of the State located here, filled as they are 
with unfortunate inmates, most of whose natural pro- 
tectors would be unable to take care of them, in the 
event of the destruction of the buildings. 

The capitol of the State, with its libraries, museum. 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE AYAE. 159 

and most of the public records, is also left in your 
power. I can but entertain the hope that they may 
escape mutilation or destruction, inasmuch as such evi- 
dences of learning and taste can advantage neither 
party in the prosecution of the war, whether destroyed 
or preserved. 

I am, General, very respectfully, 

Z. B. Vance. 

The Governor lingered in Raleigh till midnight, 
hoping to receive some news of the commission, and 
then, without a single member of his staffs accompa- 
nied by Captain Bryan and Captain J. J. Guthrie, who 
volunteered to escort him, he rode out to Geaeral 
Hoke's encampment, not far from Page's, (Carey's,) 
some eight miles from the city. Generals Hardee, 
Hampton, Hoke, and Wheeler, with their commands, 
had passed through Raleigh in the evening. 

Leaving Governor Vance's course for future consid- 
eration, I return to the group of gentlemen standing 
in .front of the State House shortly after sunrise on 
the morning of Thursday, thirteenth. The only per- 
son they met at the capitol was the servant who 
waited in the executive office, and wh^ had been in- 
trusted by Governor Vance Avith the keys. True to 
the trust reposed in him, he was present at the projoer 
time to deliver the keys as he had been directed — an 
instance of fidelity and punctuality under trying cir- 
cumstances that would, doubtless, have been rewarded 
wdth his freedom, even had there been no liberating 
army at hand. The commission received the key 



160 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

from hira, and after a hasty consultation, it was agreed 
that one should open the State House and remain till 
the arrival of the Federal army, taking such measures 
as he might deem most expedient ; and that the other 
should make his way, with the best means he could 
command, to Plillsboro, taking the University in his 
way, and endeavoring to provide for the safety of 
friends and neighbors in that quarter- 
When walking from the railroad station to the city, 
the commissioners had passed through the lines of 
General Wheeler's cavalry, pressing in the direction 
of Chapel Hill. Half an hour after reaching the State 
House, a dozen men, the debris of our army, were ob- 
served at the head of Fayette ville street, breaking open 
and plundering the stores. Governor Swain, who had 
remained at the State House, approached them, and 
stated that he was immediately from General Sher- 
man's headquarters, and had assurance from him that 
if no resistance was offered to his advaxice-guard, the 
town should be protected from plunder and violence, 
and urged the soldiers to leave at once and join their 
retreating comrades. They replied, " D — n Sherman 
and the town too ; they cared for neither." Robert 
G. Lewis, Esqfi, the first citizen cf Raleigh who had 
yet been seen, came up just then, and joined his en- 
treaties with earnestness. More and more vehement 
remonstrances were used without effect, till the head 
of Kilpatrick's column appeared in sight advancing up 
the street, when they all, with a single exception, 
sprang to their horses and started off in full gallop. 
Their leader, a lieutenant whose name and previous 



THE LAST ITINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 161 

history are yet unknown, mounted his horse, and took 
his station midway between the old New-Berne bank 
and the book-store, drew his revolver, and waited till 
Kilpatrick's advance was within a hundred yards, when 
he discharged it six times in rapid succession in the 
direction of the officer at the head of the troops. He 
then wheeled, put spurs to his horse, and galloped up 
Morgan street, followed by a dozen fleet horsemen in 
hot pursuit. Turning a corner his horse fell. He re- 
mounted, and dashed round the corner at Pleasant's 
store on Hillsboro street. A few yards further on, near 
the bridge over the railroad, he was overtaken, and was 
brought back to the Capitol Square, where General 
Kilpatrick ordered his immediate execution. It is said 
that he asked for five minutes' time to write to his 
wife, Avhich was refused. He was hung in the grove 
just back of Mr. Lovejoy's, and was buried there. He 
died bravely — a vile marauder, who justly expiated 
his crimes, or a bold patriot, whose gallantry deserved 
a more generous sentence, as friend or foe shall tell 
his story. No Southerner will cast a reproach on 
that solitary grave, or will stand beside it with other 
than feelings of deep commiseration. His crime was 
more the rash act of a passionate and reckless boy, an 
aimless bravado from one wild and despairing man to 
a hundred and twenty thousand. What our soldiers 
did or did not do in those last dark days of confusion 
and utter demoralization, we record with sad and ten- 
der allowance. Wrong was done in many instances, 
and excesses committed ; but we feel that the remem- 
brance of their high and noble qualities will in the 



162 THE LAST XIXETY DAYS OF THE VTAU. 

end survive all temporary blots and blurs. And for 
those who perished in the wrong-doing engendered by 
desperation and failure and want, their cause has per- 
ished with them. /So perish the 'tnemory of their 
faults ! 

Governor Graham, accompanied by Colonel Burr, 
set out for Hillsboro on foot, the road to Chapel Hill 
being blocked up by Wheeler's retreating squadrons, 
and resolved to trust to the chances of obtaining 
horses by the way. Finding themselves, however, in- 
volved in a skirmish between Hampton's rear-guard 
and Kilpatrick's advance, and in somewhat perilous 
circumstances, they made the best of their way back 
to Raleigh, where they arrived in the course of the 
morning. 

Governor Swain, meanwhile, had received at the 
State House the Federal officer charged with the erec- 
tion of the national flag over the dome of the building. 
He met him with the remark, "I am just from your 
Commanding General, and have his promise that this 
edifice shall not be injured." The officer replied, "I 
know you, sir, and have orders to attend to your 
wishes." They took quiet possession, and the Stars 
and Stripes were soon waving from the summit. Gov- 
ernor Swain remained at the capitol, in company with 
Mayor Harrison, who, assisted by Mayor Devereux, 
Major Hogg, and Surgeon-General Warren, and other 
gentlemen, advised with the Provost-Marshal in rela- 
tion to the stationing of guards for the protection of 
the citizens, and other matters, until two o'clock, when, 
with Governor Graham, he went to General Sherman's 



THE LAST XIXETY DATS OF THE WAE. 163 

quarters in the Government house, and delivered the 
keys to him. 

General Sherman regretted Governor Vance's de- 
parture from the citv, and desired his return as speedi- 
ly as possible. He therefore wrote him a letter invit- 
ing his return, and inclosing a safe-conduct through 
his lines for him and any members of the State or 
citv sfovernment. 

Headquarters Raleigh, N". C, ) 
Army ix the Field, April 13, 1865. ) 

To all Officers and Soldiers of the Union Army : 

Grant safe-conduct to the bearer of this to any point 
twelve miles. from Raleigh and back, to include the 
Governor of Xorth-Carolina and any members of the 
State or city government, on his way back to the capi- 
tal of the State. W. T. Shermax. 

Major-General Commanding. 

This letter the commission undertook to transmit to 
Governor Vance without loss of time ; but no horses 
were to be had among their friends in the city, nor 
could any messenger be got willing to undertake the 
errand. As soon as General Sherman heard this, he 
directed his adjutant -general to furnish the gentlemen 
with the means of locomotion, which was promptly 
done. The next morning (Friday) they left Raleigh 
for Hillsboro, where it was supposed Governor Vance 
was ; passed rapidly through Kilpatrick's columns, 
and then through Hampton's ; had a short interview 
with the latter at Strayhorns, where he was to spend 
the night ; reached Hillsboro in the evening, and, 



164 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

entering Governor Graham's parlor, found Governor 
Yance there, with Colonel Ferebee, quietly awaiting 
intelligence. Till informed by the commissioners, 
neither he nor General Hampton had heard of the sur- 
render of General Lee, and even then could hardly be 
induced to believe it. 

General Sherman's letter inviting his return to Ra- 
leigh was put in his hands, and he Avas urged to re- 
turn thither immediately with the commissioners ; but 
he had also just received a dispatch from President 
Davis, urging him most earnestly to meet him in 
Greensboro by the returning train. General Johnston 
had also gone on to Greensboro, and before returning 
to Raleigh, Governor Vance desired to see both him 
and the President — the former to get his permission 
to pass his lines, and the latter, to learn his future 
plans and acquaint hini with his intention to surren- 
der. This much was due, at least in courtesy, to the 
falling chieftain, though he was President only in 
name of a nation that had no longer any existence. 
Governor Yance was never the man to turn his back 
upon the setting sun to pursue his own advantage. 
So he decided to obey President Davis's last requisi- 
tion before accepting General Sherman's invitation, and 
left Hillsboro for Greensboro on Saturday morning. 

Governor Graham remained at home with his fami- 
ly, and Governor Swain proceeded to Chapel Hill, 
where he arrived on Saturday morning, and found it 
occupied by General Wheeler's cavalry. General 
Hoke's command having passed through, pressing on 
to Greensboro. 



CHAPTER XII. 

JOHNSTON'S RETKEAT — GOVERNORS GRAHAjVI AND SWAIN MISUN- 
DERSTOOD — wheeler's cavalry — CONFEDERATE OCCUPANCY 
OF CHAPEL HILL — THE LAST BLOOD — " STARS AND STRIPES " — 
ONE IN DEATH — GENERAL ATKINS — SCENES AROUND RA- 
LEIGH — MILITARY LAWLESSNESS. 

When the retrograde movement of General John- 
ston's army was at last fairly understood — the supply- 
trains moving slowly along the roads of Orange, and 
General Wheeler's cavalry, acting upon the maxim 
that all that they left behind them was so much aid 
and comfort to the enemy, taking care to leave at least 
as few horses and mules as possible — then deluded 
people, who had all along hugged themselves in the 
belief that their remoteness was their security, began 
to shake the dust from their eyes, and open them to 
admit a view of the possibility of Sherman's army 
reaching even their secluded homes. 

The mission of Governors Graham and Swain was 
not generally understood, even by their near neigh- 
bors. That any available attempt to check the ruin 
and devastation that had hitherto accompanied that 
army could be made, or was even consistent with 
honor and our allegiance to the Confederate Govern- 
ment, very few believed. A distinguished Confeder- 



166 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

ate general, standing on our sidewalk, as his division 
of infantry marched through on Friday, fourteenth, 
said, in reference to the commissioners, that they were 
a couple of traitors, and ought to be hung. General 
Wheeler's cavalry held the village of Chapel Hill until 
mid-day of April sixteenth, Easter Sunday. Not a 
house in the place but was thrown open to show them 
kindness and hospitality. There were rough riders 
among these troopers — men who, if plunder w^as the 
object, would have cared little whether it was got from 
friend or foe. How much of this disposition to sub- 
sist by plunder was due to the West-Point training of 
their General, it would perhaps be inquiring too curi- 
ously to consider. A few such reckless men in a regi- 
ment would have been enough to entail an evil name 
upon the whole ; and at the time of which I now speak 
there were more than a few in General Wheeler's com- 
mand who were utterly demoralized, lawless, and de- 
fiant. Having said this much, because the truth must 
be told, I will add that of that famous band by far the 
greater part were true and gallant men. We mingled 
freely with them, from General Wheeler himself, who 
slept in the drenching rain among his men, and was 
idolized by them, to his poorest private, and the im- 
pression made by them was altogether in their favor. 
There were men from every Southern State, and from 
every walk in life. There were mechanics from. Geor- 
gia and planters from Alabama : one of the latter I es- 
pecially remember, who had been a country physician 
in the north-east corner of the State; a frank and 
steady, gray-haired man, whose very address inspired 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAil. 167 

confidence, and whose eldest boy rode by his side : 
there were gay Frenchmen from Louisiana and law- 
yers from Tennessee, some of whom had graduated 
at this university in the happy days gone by, who re- 
visited these empty corridors with undisguised sad- 
ness, foreboding that not one stone would be left upon 
another of these venerable buildings, perhaps not an 
oak left standing of the noble groves, after Sherman's 
army had passed. Many of these men had not been 
paid one cent, even of Confederate currency, in more 
than a year. Few of them had more than the w.ell- 
worn suit of clothes he had on, the inefficient arms he 
carried, and the poor and poorly equipped horse he 
rode. A lieutenant, not four years before a graduate 
of this university, who had not seen his home within 
a year, and who had not long before received intelli- 
gence that his house in Tennessee had been burned to 
the ground by the enemy, and that his wife and child 
were homeless, when the certain news was brought 
by Governor Swain of General Lee's surrender, cov- 
ered his face with his hands to hide a brave man's 
tears. He told us that a twenty -five cent Confederate 
note was all that he possessed in the world besides his 
horse. The privates generally discussed the situation 
of affairs calmly and frankly, and with an amount of 
intelligence that the Southern and South-western yeo- 
manry have not generally had credit for possessing. 
They one and all agreed that, if the end was near, they 
would not surrender. " No, no," said a red-cheeked 
Georgian boy of nineteen, " they won't get me ;" and 
one six-foot-six saturnine Kentuckian assured me that 



168 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

he would join the army of France, and take his alle- 
giance and his revolver over the water. I trust he is 
on his little farm, by the Licking River, as I write, 
and has found him a wife, and is settled down to do 
his whole duty to the country once more. 

These men rode up frankly to our gates. " May 
I have my dinner here ?" " Can you give me a bis- 
cuit ?" Well, it was not much we had, but we gave 
it joyfully — dried fruit, sorghum, dried peas, and early 
vegetables. Poor as it was, we seasoned it with the 
heartiest good-will and a thousand wishes that it were 
better. The divisions of infantry passed through at a 
rapid step without halting, so that we could give them 
no more than the mute welcome and farewell, and a 
hearty God bless them, as they passed. Their faces 
were weather-beaten but cheery ; their uniforms were 
faded, stained, and worn ; but they stej^ped lightly, 
and had a passing joke for the town gazers, and a 
kindly glance for the pretty girls who lined the side- 
walks, Standing in the checkered shade of the young 
elms. 

On Friday afternoon General Wheeler rode in 
from the Raleigh road with his staff, and alighted at 
the first corner. One of his aids came up with a map 
of North-Carolina, which he unrolled and laid on the 
ground. General Wheeler knelt down to consult it, 
and the group gathered round him. Several of our 
citizens drew near, and a circle of as bright eyes and 
fair faces as the Confederacy could show anywhere, 
eager to look upon men whose names had been fa- 
miliar for four years, and whose fame will be part of 
our national history. 



THE LAST NINETY. DAYS OF THE WAR. 100 

The Federal cavalry were in close pursuit, and sev- 
eral skirmishes had taken place on the road from 
Raleigh. A brigade under General Atkins followed 
General Wheeler, while Kilpatrick, with the rest of 
his division, followed Hampton toward Hillsboro, 
along the Central Railroad line. The last skirmish 
occm-red, and perhaps the last blood of the war was 
shed on Friday evening, fourteenth, at the Atkins 
Plantation, eight miles from Chapel Hill, near the 
New-Hope River, which was much swollen by Heavy 
rains, and the bridge over which, as Avell as all others 
on the road, was destroyed by General Wheeler's men. 
They attacked the enemy endeavoring to cross on 
fallen trees and driftwood, and several were killed on 
both sides. Some of our men were killed in a skirmish 
at Morrisville, and some of the wounded came on with 
the trains. One poor fellow from Selma, Ala., mor- 
tally Avounded, was carried to the house of one of our 
principal physicians, and tenderly cared for, for two or 
three days, while he talked of his distant home and 
his mother, and sent messages to those who would see 
him no more. After his comrades had passed on and 
the place was in the hands of the Federals, he resigned 
himself to die with childlike patience, asking for a 
favorite hymn, and begging the lovely girl who had 
watched him with a sister's fidelity to kiss him, as he 
was dying, " for his sister." He was laid to rest in 
the garden, and perhaps as bitter tears of regret and 
despair fell on that lonely grave as on any during the 
war ; for the war was over, and he and the rest had 
died in vain. 



170 THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

On Sunday, at two p.m., General Wheeler called -m 
his pickets ; and once more, and for the last time, wo 
saw the gallant sight of our gray-clad. Confederate 
soldiers, and waved our last farewell to our army. 
A few hours of absolute and Sabbath stillness and 
silence ensued. The groves stood thick and solemn, 
the bright sun shining through the great boles and 
down the grassy slopes, while a pleasant fragrance 
w^as wafted from the purple j^anicles of the Paullonia. 
All that nature can do was still done with order and 
beauty, "while men's hearts were failing them for fear, 
and for looking*after those things which were coming 
on the earth. 

We sat in our pleasant piazzas and awaited events 
with quiet resignation. The silver had all been 
buried — some of it in springs, some of it ft'nder rocks 
in the streams, some of it in fence-corners, which, after 
the fences had been burned down, was pretty hard to 
find again ; some of it in the woods, some of it in the 
cellars. There was not much provision to be carried 
off—that was one comfort. The sight of our empty 
store-rooms and smoke-houses would be likely to move 
our invaders to laughter. Our wardrobes were hardly 
worth hiding — homespun and jeans hung placidly in 
their accustomed places. But the libraries, public and 
private, the buildings of the university — all minor self- 
ish considerations were merged in a generous anxiety 
for these. So we talked and speculated, while the 
very peace and profound quiet of the place sustained 
and soothed our minds. Just at sunset a sedate and 
soldierly-looking man, at the head of a dozen dressed 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE Wi\K. 171 

in blue, rode quietly in by the Raleigh road. Gover- 
nor Swain, accompanied by a few of the princijDal citi- 
zens, met them at the entrance, and stated that he had 
General Sherman's promise that the town and univer- 
sity should be saved from pillage. The soldier replied 
that such were his orders, and they should be observed. 
They then rode in, galloped up and down the streets 
inquiring for rebels ; and being informed that there 
were none in town, they withdrew for the night to 
their camp ; and the next morning, being Easter Mon- 
day, April seventeenth. General Atkins, at the head 
of a detachment of four thousand cavalry, entered 
about eight a.m., and we were captured. 

That was surely a day to be remembered by us all. 
For the first time in four years we saw the old flag — 
the " Stars and Stripes," in whose defense we would 
once have been willing to die, but which certainly ex- 
cited very little enthusiasm now. Never before had 
we realized how entirely our hearts had been turned 
away from what Avas once our whole country, till we 
felt the bitterness aroused by the sight of that flag 
shaking out its red and white folds over us. The 
utmost quiet and good order prevailed. Guards were 
placed at every house immediately, and with a prompt- 
ness that was needful ; for one residence, standing a 
little apart, was entered by a squad of bummers in 
advance of the guard, and in less than ten minutes the 
lower rooms, store-rooms, and bed-rooms were over- 
li.iuled and plundered with a swift and business-like 
liioi-oiighness only attainable by long and extensive 
pr.ntiee. A guard arriving, they left; but their plun- 



1*72 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 

der was not restored. The village guards, belonging 
to the Ninth Michigan cavalry, deserve especial men- 
tion as being*a decent set of men, who, wiiile they 
Avere here, behaved with civility and propriety. 

That was surely a day to be remembered by us all ; 
yet the first returning anniversary of that day brought 
the village of Chapel Hill an occasion as generally in- 
teresting, but invested with a tenderness of its own. 
On the sixteenth of April, 1866, the whole town 
poured out to receive two Confederate soldiers — two 
brothers — who had fallen in battle in our defense.* 
They came back home that day, and were placed side 
by side in that church, whose aisles their infant feet 
had trodden. The plain deal boxes that inclosed them 
were graced with garlands, and the emblem of the 
holy faith in which they had died "more than con- 
querors," woven of the flowers of their own dear 
native State. It was all that North-Carolina could 
do for her sons who had died in obedience to her 
laws. 

Come, Southern flowers, and twine above tlieir grave ; 

Let all our rath spring blossoms bear a part ; 
Let lilies of the vale and snowdrops wave. 

And come tliou too, fit emblem, bleeding-lieart ! 

Bring all our evergreens — the laurel and the bay. 
From the deep forests which aromid us stand ; 

They know them well, for in a happier day 

They roamed these hills and valleys hand in hand. 

Yq winds of heaven, o'er them gently sigh. 
And April showers fall in kindliest rain, 

* Junius C. and W. Lowis^ the two youngest sons of the Hon. W, H. Battle. 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 173 

And let tlie golden sunbeams softly lie 
Upon the sod for which they died in vain. 

It was something — it was much, that we could lay 
them among their own familiar hills, pleasant in their 
lives and undivided in their deaths. And North- 
Carolina dust will lie lightly on their gentle and noble 
breasts. 

While the command of General Atldns remained in 
ChaiDel Hill — a period of nearly three weeks — the same 
work, with perhaps some mitigation, was going on in 
the country round us, and around the city of Raleigh, 
which had marked the progress of the Federal armies 
all through the South. Planters having large families 
of white and black were left without food, forage, cat- 
tle, or change of clothing. Being in camp so long, 
bedding became an object with the marauders ; and 
many wealthy families were stripped of what the in- 
dustry of years had accumulated in that line. Much 
of what was so wantonly taken was as wantonly de-- 
stroyed and squandered among the prostitutes and 
negroes who haunted the camps. As to Raleigh, 
though within the corporate limits, no plundering of 
the houses Avas allowed ; yet in the suburbs and the 
country the inscrutable policy of permitting unre- 
strained license to the troops prevailed to its widest 
extent. From the statements of several of the promi- 
nent citizens of Raleigh I make the following extracts, 
the first giving a general view, and the other simply 
one man's personal experience : 

" Immediately around Raleigli the farms were com- 
pletely despoiled of every thing in the shape of provi- 



174 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

sions and forage, so as to leave literallj^ nothing for 
the sup23ort of man or beast. In many instances the 
houses were burned or torn to pieces, and the fences 
and inclosures entirely destroyed, so as to render it 
impossible at that season of the year to produce one 
third of a crop, even with the greatest industry and 
attention. Every horse and mule found in the coun- 
try fit for service was taken off, and only a few old 
and lialf starved ones are to be found on the farms." 

The other statement I give in full :* 

" On the thirteenth day of April, General Sherman 
took military possession of Raleigh. A portion of his 
body-guard pitched their tents (eight in number) in 
my front-yard, Avhich, with a room in my office, were 
occupied by offi.cers. Their servants — cooks, waiters, 
and hostlers — took possession of my kitchens, out- 
houses, and stables, appropriating them in a most riot- 
ous and* insolent manner. The soldiers tore down my 
yard and garden-fences for fuel and tents, and turned 
their horses and mules upon my vegetables and fruit- 
trees, destroying a large lot of corn, potatoes, peas, 
etc. ; took off my horses and mules, tore off the doors, 
flooring, and weather-boarding of my out-houses and 
barns for tents ; killed all my poultry, upward of thirty 
young hogs, cooking them in my kitchen for the offi- 
cers' tables. After the removal of this squad, another 
took instant possession, and pitched twenty-four tents 
in my front-yard and a large number in the lower part 

* There seems to be no good reason to refrain from saying that this statement 
describes the treatment received by Governor Manly, and that the lady men- 
tioned in the next paragraph is the \vife of General Cox. — Editor. 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 175 

of my grounds, still using my kitchen, beside building 
fires all over the yard. At my plantation, three miles 
from town, the devastation was thorough and unspar- 
ing. I had no overseer there. The negroes, some 
seventy in number, were plundered of their clothing 
and provisions, consisting of bacon, pickled beef, corn- 
meal, and flour. My dwelling-house was broken open, 
weather-boarding, flooring, and ceiling carried ofi^, 
every window-sash and glass broken out, and every 
article of furniture for house or kitchen either carried 
off or wantonly destroyed. Barns, cotton-house, and 
sheds were all torn down ; blacksmith's, carpenter's, 
and forming implements carried off or broken up ; 
three carts and two large wagons, Avith their gear, de- 
stroyed ; the fences burned ; and a large number of 
mules and horses pastured on the wheat-fields ; all my 
mules and horses there (seventeen in number) carried 
off; fifty head of cattle, forty slieep, fifty hogs, and a 
large flock of geese and poultry either taken oft' or 
wantonly shot down ; a quantity of medicine, some 
excellent wines, brandy, whisky, and two hundred 
gallons of vinegar were taken. Wagon-trains went 
down day after day, till 150 barrels of corn, 15,000 
pounds of fodder, 12,000 pounds of hay, and all my 
wheat, peas, cotton, etc., were carried off, leaving the 
wliole place entirely bare, so that my negroes had to 
come in town for rations." 

By the above account it will be seen that the hav- 
ing a guard did not avail to protect the premises, even 
within the city, though, as a general rule, their pres- 
ence did avail to protect the grounds immediately 



116 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

around the house. A lady residing beyond the city 
limits, the wife of a general officer in our army, had 
her house repeatedly pillaged, and all the provisions 
belonging to her negroes, as well as her own, carried 
off. The tent of a general in the Federal army was 
pitched just in front of the house, and every marauder 
going in and coming out laden with spoils was imme- 
diately in his view ; yet not a word was said to check 
the men, nor any steps allowed for her protection. 
A guard was refused her, on the ground of the action 
of Wheeler's men at their entrance; and when, after 
repeated solicitation, a guard reluctantly came, he 
allowed all who Avere on the premises laden, to march 
off with what they had in hand, saying he had no 
authority to take any thing away from them ! The 
unfortunate negroes were the severest sufferers, they 
being literally stripped of their all, and, beginning a 
new life of freedom, began it without even the little 
savings and personal property accumulated in slavery. 

That General Sherman was well aware of all this, 
and not only tacitly permitted it, but considered it a 
necessary part of war that non-combatants lying at 
the mercy of his army should receive no mercy at all, 
is one of the extraordinary developments of the war. 
There would rather seem to be a deficiency of judg- 
ment on his part than a real want of humanity, for 
which he may have been indebted to the astute mili- 
tary training received at West-Point. 

To that institution alone must be conceded the un- 
enviable distinction of sending out soldiers instructed 
to carry fire, famine, and slaughter through the invaded 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. - l77 

country, and then sententioiisly declaring that " such 
is war.^^ 

" To her alone the praise is due, • 

She let them loose and cried Halloo !" 

Even while the peace negotiations were in progress, 
as we have seen, and in many cases after peace was 
declared, the grand army hastened to improve the 
shining hours in Wake, Orange, and Alamance. 
Wholesale robbery, abuse, and insult were practiced 
in so many instances under the eyes of the command- 
ing officers, that those who would have said that the 
officers did not know or permit such things, and that 
they were the work of only lawless stragglers and 
camp-followers, such as are found in all armies, were 
forced to the unavoidable conclusion that this species 
of warfare was encouraged and approved by the com- 
manders as an important branch of the service, and an 
invaluable aid in the work of subjugation and recon- 
struction. 



CHAPTER Xin. 

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNOR SWAIN AND GENERAL 
SHERMAN — GOVERNOR VANCE'S POSITION AND CONDUCT — 
KILPATRICK — THE CONDUCT OE THE SERVANTS — " LEE'S 
MEN " — PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 

I AM persuaded that it requires the exercise of an 
implicit faith, and a total rejection of the evidence of 
things seen, to believe that General Sherman as a man, 
deplored the policy which, as a general, he felt bound 
to pursue. I shall, however, give him the benefit of 
his own professions, which, whether sincere or not, 
are certainly in unison with the part lie played in the 
treaty with General Johnston. The following corre- 
spondence will be read with interest : 

Chapel Hill, April 19, 1865. 
Major- General W. T, Sherman^ commanding TInited 

States Forces : 

General: . . . On my return to this village 
on Saturday morning, fifteenth instant, I found that 
General" Wheeler, wdth his division of cavalry, had 
been encamped here for two days. He resumed his 
march on Sunday morning, leaving the country de- 
nuded to a considerable extent of forage, and taking 
with him a number of horses and mules. General 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 1 79 

Atkins arrived with his brigade on Monday morning, 
and is in camp here now. I have had several inter- 
views with General Atkins, and have pleasure in stat- 
ing that he manifests a disposition to execute his 
orders with as much forbearance as he deems compati- 
ble with the proper discharge of his duty. Neverthe- 
less, many worthy families have been stripped by his 
soldiers of the necessary means of subsistence. A 
Baptist clergyman — a most estimable, quiet, and 
charitable citizen, and the most extensive farmer 
within a circle of three miles — is almost entirely des- 
titute of provision for man and beast; and with a 
family of more than fifty persons, (white and colored,) 
has not a single horse or mule. Other instances, not 
less striking, exist, of families in less affluent circum- 
stances ; but I i'efer particulaa'ly to Mr. Purefoy, be- 
cause he has been my near neighbor for about thirty 
years, and I hold him in the highest estimation. He, 
like many others, is not merely Avithout the present 
means of subsistence, but unless his horses and mules 
are restored or replaced, can make no provision for 
the future. The delay of a few days even may render 
it impossible to plant corn in proper time. 

I am satisfied from the impression made on me in 
our recent interview, that personally, you have no dis- 
position to add to the unavoidable horrors of war, by 
availing yourself of the utmost license which writers 
on the subject deem admissible, but that, on the con- 
trary, you would prefer to treat the peaceful tillers of 
the soil with no unnecessary harshness. I venture to 
hope, therefore, that the present state of negotiations 



180 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

between the contending armies will enable you to re- 
lax the severity of the orders under which General 
Atkins is acting, and I am satisfied that if you shall 
feel yourself justified by the course of events in doing 
so, an intimation of your purpose will be welcome in- 
telligence to him. 

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

D. L. Swain. 

Headqtjaetees Military Division or the ) 

Mississippi, in the Field, y 

Raleigh, K C, April 22, 1865. ) 

Son. D. L. Swain^ Chapel Hill^ N. C. : 

My Dear Sir: Yours of April nineteenth was laid 
before me yesterday, and I am pleased that you recog- 
nize in General Atkias a fair representative of our 
army. 

The moment war ceases, and I think that time is at 
hand, all seizures of horses and private property will 
cease on our part. And it may be that we will be 
able to spare some animals for the use of the farmers 
of your neighborhood. There now exists a species of 
truce, but we must stand prepared for action ; but I 
believe that in a very few days a definitive and gen- 
eral peace will be arranged, when I will make orders 
that will be in accordance with the new state of af- 
fairs. 

I do believe that I fairly represent the feelings of 
my" countrymen — that we prefer peace to war ; but if 
war is forced upon us, we must meet it ; but if peace 
be possible, we will accept it, and be the friends of the 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 181 

farmers and working classes of North-Carolina, as well 
as actual patrons of churches, colleges, asylums, and 
all institutions of learning and charity. Accept the 
assurances of my respect and high esteem. 
I am, truly yours, W. T. Sherman, 

Major-General Commanding. 

Without ascribing to General Sherman uny extra- 
ordinary degree of merit as a writer, I am inclined to 
give him credit for sincerity in these professions, sim- 
ply because of the corroborating evidence afforded by 
his conduct in the treaty with Johnston. Their first 
agreement was not ratified at Washington^ and Gen- 
eral Sherman's position therein was severely censured ; 
but no one who rightly estimated the condition of the 
South at the close of the war, and the state of public 
feeling among us, has ever doubted that, if that treaty 
had been ratified, the happiest results would have fol- 
lowed, and an immense amount of trouble, exj)ense, 
and evil would have been avoided by the whole coun- 
try. I repeat what I have said previously, that Gen- 
eral Sherman alone, of all the prominent men and lead- 
ers among our antagonists, was at that time possessed 
of the requisite ability and statesmanship and magna- 
nimity to comprehend the situation, and seize the op- 
portunity and the means for an equitable adjustment 
of our difficulties. I greatly regret not being able to 
present my readers with a copy of his letter of invita- 
tion to Governor Vance to return to Raleigh. On the 
fourteenth of April General Johnston sent him his first 
letter, requesting a suspension of hostilities, with a 



182 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

view to entering into arrangements for putting a stop 
to the war. This application was replied to by Gen- 
eral Sherman in a really noble and generous spirit, 
and their correspondence resulted in those interviews 
at Durham's Station, on the North-Carolina Central 
Railroad, Avhich concluded the war and have become 
historical, No one can read that correspondence with- 
out seeing unmistakable evidence that General Sher- 
man manifested an eager anxiety to save the South 
from further devastation. Perhaps a late remorse had 
touched him ; but however that may be, in the civil 
policy he has always advocated toward the South, he 
has shown himself at once generous and politic. If he 
had pursued an equally far-sighted course as a soldier ; 
if he had advocated a humane forbearance toward the 
defenseless peoj^le who were crushed beneath his march ; 
if he had enforced a strict discipline in his army, and 
chosen to appear as a restorer rather than as a de- 
stroyer, there are few at the South who would not 
join to pronounce him the hero of the war on the 
Northei^n side, and his name would worthily go down 
to posterity by the side of the great captain of the 
age, who declared, when leading his victorious veterans 
into France, that rather than suffer them to pillage the 
country as they passed, he would resign his command. 

While Generals Johnston and Sherman were en- 
gaged in their negotiations at Durham's, Governor 
Vance found that by having obeyed President Davis's 
summons to Greensboro before accepting General Sher- 
man's invitation to Raleigh, he was effectually pre- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAK. 183 

eluded from all further participation in the affairs of 
the State. I am not at liberty to say why or how this 
was ; but it is probable the Governor himself does not 
very deeply regret it, since it is not likely he would 
have been permitted by the Federal authorities to re- 
tain his office, even if he had returned to Raleigh and 
resumed the reins. All General Sherman's views and 
official acts as peacemaker were speedily disavowed 
and overruled at Washington ; and though Governor 
Yance was willing to have made the experiment, be- 
ing urged thereto by his best friends, yet, as matters 
have since turned out^ it is as well that he was pre- 
vented. He and his noble State were equally incapa- 
ble of any attempt to make terms for themselves, even 
had it been likely that any. terms would have been 
granted. Our fortunes were to be those of our sister 
States whom we had joined deliberately, fought for, 
and suffered with ; and Governor Vance was never 
more truly our representative than in the treatment 
he received from the Federal Government after the 
surrender. 

Our Governor left Hillsboro on Saturday, arrived in 
Greensboro on Sunday morning, April sixteenth, and 
found that President Davis had left for Charlotte the 
day before. The whole Confederate Government left 
Danville the preceding Monday, April tenth, arrived 
at Greensboro on the same day, and had ever since 
been living in the cars around the railroad station at 
that place. Mr. Trenholm being very ill, had been 
taken to Governor Morehead's. But the Confederate 
President, and all the Government officials lived for 



184 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

five rainy days in tlie miserable leaky cars that had 
brought them thither, having abundant government 
stores of provision in their train. On the slope of a 
hill near by, which tradition points out as that on 
which General Greene had held a council of war pre- 
vious to the battle of Guilford, in 1781, President 
Davis and his Cabinet, and Generals Beauregard and 
Johnston held their last conference a day or two be- 
fore Governor Vance's arrival. It had resulted in the 
first terms which General Johnston was authorized to 
make with General Sherman, and he was already on 
his way back to Hillsboro, to hold his first interview 
with the Federal commander. Failing to see the Presi- 
dent, Governor Vance would now have returned to 
Raleigh. All that can be said at this point is, that he 
loas not permitted hy our military authorities to pass 
through their lines lohile the negotiations were pending. 
He then followed President Davis to Charlotte, and 
had a final interview with him, giving him notice of 
his intention, as General Johnston was then on the 
point of surrendering the army, to Surrender himself 
to Sherman, and use what means were in his power to 
save the State and State property from further ruin, 
treating the Confederacy as at an end. Returning to 
Greensboro, he found the first terms agreed upon had 
been rejected at Washington, and the two command- 
ing generals were engaged in a fresh negotiation. 
Failing still to receive permission to proceed to Ra- 
leigh, he wrote a letter to General Sherman, and sent 
it by Treasurer Worth, who found on his arrival in 
Raleigh that General Sherman was gone, and General 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAB. 185 

Scliofield was in command, who refused to allow Gov- 
ernor Yance to retm*n at all. 

The Governor then remained quietly in Greensboro 
until Schofield's arrival there, when he had an inter- 
view with him, giving him necessary information as to 
State property, records, etc., etc., and bespeaking his 
protection for them and for our people, especially in 
those localities where they were at feud with each 
other. He then tendered his own surrender, which 
General Schofield refused to accept, saying he had no 
orders to arrest him, and he might go where he pleased. 
Governor Yance then told him he would join his fami- 
ly at Statesville, and would be found there if requisi- 
tion should be made for him. He arrived in States- 
ville, rejoining his family on the fourth of May — by a 
curious coincidence, the very day on which, four years 
before, he had left them, a volunteer for the war ! 
And four such years ! — sketched for us thirty years 
ago in that sublime and solemn picture upon the can- 
vas of Webster, where lay a land rent with civil feuds, 
nfid drenched in fraternal blood. He remained until 
the thirteenth, when he was arrested by order of the 
Federal Government, by Major Porter, commanding a 
detachment of three hundred cavalry, Ninth Pennsyl- 
vania, conveyed a prisoner to Raleigh, and thence to 
the Old Capitol Prison at Washington City. 

On the thirteenth of April, General Sherman en- 
tered Raleigh. The day before. General Stoneman 
had occupied Salisbury. He entered the State from 
Knoxville, Tenn., taking most of the towns in his way. 
and committing an immense amount of damage, and 



186 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

finally arriving in Salisbury just in time to destroy 
utterly all the valuable State and Confederate proper- 
ty which had been so sedulously conveyed from Ra- 
leigh, to escape General Sherman ! The particulars 
of this important and successful move I have as yet 
been unable to procure. I hope, however, to present 
them at some time in a detailed and authentic narra- 
tive. The cooperation with Sherman was timely, and 
would have been a perfect success if Stoneman had 
ventured to hold Salisbury. He might easily have 
done so, though, to be sure, he did not know that ; 
but if he had, he might have given checkmate to the 
Confederacy at once. - President Davis would never 
have reached Charlotte. As it was, the raiders from 
Stoneman's command, who cut the Danville road 
above Greensboro, were within half an hour of cap- 
turing the whole Confederate Government in its flight. 
During the occupation of Chapel Hill by Kilpa- 
trick's cavalry, the citizens of the place possessed their 
souls in as much patience as they could muster up, en- 
deavoring to arrive at a stoical not to say philosophi- 
cal frame of mind, in view of the sudden dislocation 
of all things — among other things, maintaining a de- 
cent degree of composure upon the establishment of 
Liberia in our midst, and accommodating ourselves to 
this new phase of things with a good deal of grim 
humor. The negroes, however, behaved much better, 
on the whole, than Northern letter-writers represent 
them to have done. Indeed, I do not know a race 
more studiously misrepresented than they have been 
and are at this present time. . They behaved well 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAE. 187 

during the war : if they had not, it could not have 
lasted eighteen months. They showed a fidelity and 
a steadiness which speaks not only well for themselves 
but well fbr their training and the system under which 
they lived. And when their liberators arrived, there 
was no indecent excitement on receiving the gift of 
liberty, nor displays of impertinence to their masters. 
In one or two instances they gave " Missus " 1?o under- 
stand that they desired present j)ayment for their 
services in gold and silver, but, in general, the tide of 
domestic life floAved on externally as smoothly as ever. 
In fact, though of course few at the North will believe 
me, I am sure that they felt for their masters, and 
secretly sympathized with their ruin. They knew 
that they were absolutely penniless and conquered ; 
and though they were glad to be free, yet they did 
not turn round, as New-England letter-writers have 
represented, to exult over their owners, nor exhibit 
the least trace of New-England malignity. So the 
bread was baked in those latter days, the clothes were 
washed and ironed, and the baby was nursed as zeal- 
ously as ever, though both parties understood at once 
that the service was voluntary. The Federal soldiers 
sat a good deal in the kitchens ; but the division being 
chiefly composed of North-western men, who had little 
love for the negro, (indeed I heard some d — n him as 
the cause of the the war, and say that they would 
mucli rather put a bullet through an abolitionist than 
tlirough a Confederate soldier,) there was probably 
very little incendiary talk and instructions going on. 
In all which, in comparison with other localities, we 
were much favored. 



188 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

So we endeavored to play out the play with dignity 
and self-possession, watching the long train of for- 
agers coming in every day by every high-road and by- 
way leading from the country, laden with the sub- 
stance of our friends and neighbors for many miles, 
(though in many cases, let me say, the Government 
made payment for food and forage taken after peace 
was declared,) watching them with such feelings as 
made us half ashamed of our own immunity, wonder- 
ing where it would all end, and that we should have 
lived to see such a day ; reviewing the height from 
which we had fallen, and struggling, I say, to wear a 
look of proud composure, when. all our assumed stoi- 
cism and resignation was put to flight by the appear- 
ance, on a certain day, of a squad of unarmed men in 
gray, dusty and haggard, walking slowly along the 
road. A moment's look, a hasty inquiry, and "Xee's 
men /" burst from our lips, and tears from our eyes. 
There they were, the heroes of the army of Virginia, 
walking home, each with his pass in his pocket, and 
nothing else. To run after them, to call them in, to 
feel honored at shaking those rough hands, to spread 
the table for them, to cry over them, and say again 
and again, " God bless you all ; we are just as proud 
of you, and thank you just as much as if it had turned 
out differently ;" this was a work which stirred our 
inmost souls, and has left a tender memory which will 
outlast life. Day after day we saw them, sometimes 
in twos and threes, sometimes in little companies, 
making the best of their way toward their distant 
homes, penniless and dependent on wayside charity 



THE LAST XINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 189 

for their food, plodding along, while the blue jackets 
pranced gayly past on the best blood of Southern sta- 
bles. But I am glad to record that wherever a Fede- 
ral soldier met any of them, he was prompt to offer 
help and food, and express a kindly and soldierly cor- 
diality. Grant's men, they all said, had been espe- 
cially generous. There was something worth study- 
ing in the air and expression of these men, a something 
which had a beneficial and soothing effect on the ob- 
servers. They were not unduly cast down, nor had 
any appearance of the humiliation that was burning 
into our souls. They were serious, calm, and self-pos- 
sessed. They said they were satisfied that all had 
been done that could be done, and they seemed to be 
sustained by the sense of duty done and well done, 
and the event left to God, and with His award they 
had no intention of quarreling. It was a fair fight, 
they said, but the South had been starved out ; one 
dark-eyed young South-Carolinian said, for his part he 
was going home to settle down, and if any body ever 
said " secesh " to him again, he meant to knock 'em 
over. Many looked thin and feeble ; and a gallant 
major from Fayetteville told me himself that when or- 
dered to the last charge, he a,nd his men, who had 
been living for some days on parched corn, were so 
weak that they reeled in their saddles. " But we 
would have gone again," he added, "if Lee had 
said so." 

The news of the death of President Lincoln, re- 
ceived at first with utter incredulity, deej^ened the 
gloom and horrible uncertainty in which we lived. 



190 TPIE LAST NI>^ETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

That he Avas dead simply may not have excited any 
regret among people who for four years had been 
learning to regard him as the prime agent in all our 
troubles. But when the time, place, and manner of 
his death came to be told, an unaffected and deep hor- 
ror and dismay filled our minds. The time has not 
yet come for Southern people to estimate President 
Lincoln fairly. "We never could admire him as he ap- 
peared as a candidate for the Presidency, nor look 
upon him as a great man, in any sense of the word. 
But even if we had recognized him as a lofty and com- 
manding genius, fit to guide the destiny of a great na- 
tion through a crisis of imminent peril, the smoke of 
the battle-fields would have obscured to us all his good 
qualities, and we should have regarded him only as 
the malignant star, whose ascendency boded nothing 
but evil to us. He was always presented to us in 
caricature. The Southern press never mentioned him 
but with some added sobriquet of contempt and 
hatred. His simplicity of character and kindliness of 
heart we knew nothing of; nor would many now at 
the South, much as they may deplore his death, con- 
cede to him the possession of any such virtues. They 
judged him by the party which took possession of 
him after his inauguration, and by his advisers. But 
a sense of remorse fills my mind now as I write of him, 
realizing how much that was really good and guileless, 
and well-intentioned and generous, may have come to 
an untimely end in the atrocious tragedy at Ford's 
Theatre. The extravagance of eulogy by which the 
Northern people have sought to express their sense of 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 191 

his worth and of his loss, has had much to do with 
our unwillingness to judge him fjiirly. To place the 
Illinois lawyer by the side of Washington would have 
heen an offense against taste and common-sense ; but 
to comj^are him to the Son of God, to ascribe to him 
also the work of " dying the just for the unjust," is an 
impious indecency which may suit the latitude of Mr. 
Bancroft, and the overstrained tone of the Northern 
mind generally, but whose only effect at the South is 
to widen the distance between us and the day Avhen 
we shall frankly endeavor to understand and do justice 
to President Lincoln. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GENEKAL STONEMAN — OUTRAGES — COLD-BLOODED IMTTRDEIIS — 
GENERAL GILLA]\r — PROGRESS THROUGH LENOIR, "WILKES, 
SURRY, AND STOKES — STONEMAN'S DETOUR INTO VIRGINIA — 
THE DEFENSE OP SALISBURY — THE FIGHT IN THE STREETS OF 
SALISBURY — GENERAL POLK'S FAMILY — TEMPORARY OCCU- 
PANCY OF SALISBURY — CONTINUOUS RAIDING. 

Ox the same day that General Sherman entered 
Raleigh, General Stoneman occupied Salishmy, April 
12-1 3th, thns completing the chain of events* which 
was closing in upon the Confederacy. Among the 
prisoners kept at Salisbury were some of the better 
class, who were at large on parole. This they broke 
in the winter of 1864-5, and, making their escape over 
the mountains into Tennessee, carried such accounts 
of the accumulation of stores, etc., at Salisbury, as 
made its capture an object of importance. 

General Stoneman entered the State during the last 
week of March, by the turnpike leading from Taylors- 
ville, Tennessee, through Watauga county to Deep 
Gap, on the Blue Ridge. His force was probably six 
or seven thousand strong, though rumor increased it 
to fifteen, twenty, thirty, and in one instance to sixty 
thousand. 

They entered Boone, the county-seat of Watauga, 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 193 

• 

on the twenty-sixth of March. The village was com- 
pletely taken by surprise. No one was aware of the 
approach of an enemy till the advance-guard dashed 
up the main street, making no demand for surrender, 
but firing right and left at every moving thing they 
saw. Mrs. James Council, hearing the noise, stepped 
into her piazza with her child in her arms, and imme- 
diately 'a volley of balls splintered the wood-work all 
around her. She, however, escaped unhurt. The peo- 
ple of this county had been warmly attached to the 
Confederate cause, and had bravely resisted East-Ten- 
nessee raiders and marauders. The county-seat was 
therefore, perhaps, especially obnoxious; and what- 
ever may have been General Stoneman's policy, there 
were subordinate officers in his command who were 
only too happy in the opportunity to retort upon a 
defenseless and unresisting population. The jail was 
burned by order of General Gillam. For this it is said 
he was sternly rebuked by General Stoneman ; but all 
the county records, books, and private pajDcrs were 
destroyed. Private houses were of course plundered, 
and the citizens were consoled by the assurance that 
" Kirk was to follow and clean them out." Several 
citizens were shot under circumstances of peculiar ag- 
gravation. A party of the raiders went into the field 
of Mr. Jacob Council, where he was plowing with a 
negro. He was over the conscript age, a prudent, 
quiet man, who had taken no part in the war. He 
was shot down in cold blood, notwithstanding his pit- 
eous appeals for mercy, because, upon the negro's 
statement, he was " an infernal rebel." Another, War- 



194 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

ren Green, was killed while holding up his hands in 
token of surrender. Another, Calvin Green, was pur- 
sued and surrendered, hut they continued firing upon 
him after his surrender. He then resolved to defend 
himself, and fought, loading and firing till he was 
shot down and left for dead. He shattered the arm 
of one of the Federal soldiers, so that it had to be 
amputated that night. But instead of dying himself, 
he recovered, and is now living. Steele Frazier, a lad 
of fifteen, was chased by a squad of half a dozen. He 
made a running fight of it. Getting over a fence, he 
coolly waited till they were within range, and then 
fired and shot one through. He then ran again, load- 
ing, and turned again and killed another of his pur- 
suers ; and notwithstanding the pursuit was kept up 
some distance, the balls whistling round him, he finally 
made good his escape, and will probably make none 
the worse citizen, when he is grown, for his adven- 
turous boyhood. 

Through the whole of this raid General Stoneman 
is represented to have been apparently anxious to mit- 
io-ate the distresses and horrors of war as far as was 
practicable, by courteous and humane treatment of 
the people. His record and that of General Palmer 
are in refreshing contrast to those of his subordinate, 
General Gillam, and of certain other higher names in 
the Federal army. There is one story, however, told 
of him in Boone, which, after all, may be due to his 
quartermaster or commissary-in-chief Mrs, Council 
had been kind to some Federal prisoners confined in 
the jail ; and the invaders hearing of it, requited her 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 195 

by affording her protection during their stay. Kirk's 
raiders, however, came down after Stoneman had 
passed on, and stripped the place of all that had been 
left — the gallant Colonel Kirk himself making his 
headquarters with this lady — keeping her a close pris- 
oner in her own room, while he and his men made 
free with the rest of the house and the premises. 
That they left little or nothing but the bare walls, 
may be inferred from General Stoneman's remark on 
his return to the place after the capture of Salisbury. 
Standing in the piazza and taking a survey of what 
had once been a happy and beautiful home — the 
fencing all gone, the gardens, shrubbery, and yard 
trampled bare, covered with raw hides of cattle and 
sheep, decaying carcasses, and all manner of filth — he 
turned to the lady and said, " Well, Mrs. C, I sup- 
pose you hardly know whether you are at home or 
not." Gratefully remembering his former courtesy to 
her, she exerted herself to entertain him with such 
scanty stores as the raiders had left. A firkin of un- 
commonly fine butter had been overlooked by them, 
and she placed some of this on the table. The Gen- 
eral commended this butter especially, and asked her 
if she liad any more of it. She told him it was about 
the only thing to eat she had left, and congratulated 
herself on its safety under his protection. What was 
her mortification, a short time after, to see the firkin 
ordered out and placed in the General's own provi- 
sion-wagon. So much that is favorable to General 
Stoneman's character has reached me, that I can not 
help hoping he was ignorant of this unspeakably small 
transaction. 



196 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

On the twenty-seventh of March, the column was 
divided. General Stoneman, with one division, went 
direct to Wilkesboro. The other, under General Gil- 
lam, crossed the Blue Ridge at Blowing Rock, and 
went to Patterson, in CaldAvell county, thence rejoining 
Stoneman at Wilkesboro. At Patterson General Gil- 
lam took the responsibility of ordering the extensive 
cotton factory there to be burned. General Stoneman 
is said to have regretted this destruction especially, as 
Mr. Patterson, the owner, had received a promise that 
it should be spared, and the people of East-Tennessee • 
had been largely supplied from it. But General Gil- 
lam, when not immediately under General Stoneman's 
eye, could not restrain his propensities. He announced 
that " the Government had been too lenient, and reb- 
els must look out for consequences," and ordered the 
torch to be applied. 

While the raiders were in the Yadkin river-bot- 
tom, they were detained three days by freshets. 
Small parties scoured tfie country, carrying off all the 
horses and mules, and burning the factories. There 
seemed to be no systematic plan of destruction ; for 
while some mills and factories were burned, others in 
the same neighborhood and quite as easily accessible 
were spared. Much depended on the personal char- 
acter and disposition of the commanding officer of 
these detachments. If he happened to be a gentle- 
man, the people were spared as much as possible ; if 
he were simply a brute dressed in a little brief author- 
ity, every needless injury was inflicted, accompanied 
with true iinderbred insolence and malice. The pri- 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 197 

vates always followed the lead of their commander. 
The factories on Hunting Creek, in the upper part of 
Tredell, were burned with large quantities of cotton. 
Eao-le Mills alone lost eis^ht hundred bales. Amons: 
General Gillam's exploits in Wilkesboro, was the find- 
ing the horse of the late General James Gordon in the 
stable of a brother-in-law of the General. This, Gen- 
eral G. immediately, with great intrepidity, " cap- 
tured ;" and further to impress the family with a sense 
of his heroic achievement, he had a man to mount the 
animal and parade him slowly up and down before 
the door of the house for an hour or two. 

Leaving Wilkesboro on the thirty-first of March, 
General Stoneman moved over into Surry county, 
in the direction of Mount Airy, and thence into Vir- 
ginia, aiming for Christiansburg, on the Tennessee 
Railroad. A portion of the command being detached 
to Wytheville, was met near that place by General 
Duke's cavalry, and repulsed, but rallying, took the 
town and destroyed tlie depot of supplies there. Hav- 
ing efi'ectually destroyed the road above Wythesville, 
between ISTew River and Big Lick, General Stoneman 
turned back upon North-Carolina, reentering it from 
Patrick county, Virginia, and marching rapidly through 
Stokes county, appeared suddenly in Salem and Win- 
ston on the tenth of April. Here he sent out various 
detachments to cut the ISTorth-Carolina Central Road 
and the Danville and Greensboro Road, destroy 
bridges, supplies, etc., etc. One of these parties, as I 
have said before, narrowly missed capturing the train 
conveying the whole Confederate government, in its 



198 THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

flight to Greensboro. They burned the bridge at 
Jamestown, and were about to fire the depot, but upon 
a sudden false alarm, fled precipitately withou finish- 
ing their work. At High Point they burned the depot 
and large quantities of government stores, also seven- 
teen hundred bales of cotton belonging to Francis 
Fries, of Salem. The public buildings and stores at 
Lexington and Thomasville were saved by the arrival 
of a body of Ferguson's cavalry, who chased the raid- 
ers back to Salem. The general plan of the whole 
raid seemed to contemplate the destruction of stores 
and the cutting off" communications without risking a 
battle. 

At Salem and Winston private property was j^ro- 
tected, no pillage being permitted. This was probably 
owing to the fact that the inhabitants having had no- 
tice of the approach of the raiders, sent a deputation 
to meet them and make a formal surrender of the 
town. I am not aware that a demand for surrender 
was made of any place during the entire raid, or that 
any place beside Salem and Winston, which may be 
regarded as one, ofiered a surrender. The first notice 
of the presence of any enemy, in most cases, was 
given by the unlooked-for arrival of the advance-guard 
galloping in and taking possession. 

At Mocksville, a number of the citizens, supposing 
it was only a small squad that was hurrying through 
the country and plundering, prepared to give them a 
warm reception, and a short distance from town fired 
upon the advancing column. Soon finding their mis- 
take, they retreated. Threats of burning the village 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 199 

for this audacious thought of resistance were made, 
but as General Stoneman was pressing forward with 
all speed upon Salisbury, no time was allowed for any- 
such exchange of compliments. 

General Stoneman's detour into Virginia had com- 
pletely mystified the people of North-Carolina. They 
breathed freely as he passed over the border, and con- 
gratulated themselves that the dreaded raid, which 
for weeks had been anticipated, was so soon at an end. 
The troops which had been posted by General Beau- 
regard at Salisbury, for its protection, were moved off 
to Greensboro and to the railroad bridge across the 
Yadkin, and the town was left with little or no de- 
fense. If Stoneman had marched thither from Wilkes- 
boro, he would probably have been repulsed with dis- 
aster ; for a large body of infantry, with artillery and 
cavalry, had been concentrated there ; but when Salis- 
bury was attacked, on the morning of the twelfth of 
April, the whole effective force did not much exceed 
five hundred men, including two batteries on their way 
to join Johnston at Raleigh. Of these five hundred 
two hundred were " galvanized " Irish, recruited from 
among the Federal prisoners — ^besides artisans in the 
government employ from the various shops, Junior 
reserves, and a number of citizens who volunteered 
in defense of their homes. In the absence of General 
Bradley T. Johnson, the commandant of the post, 
General Gardner took command, and disposed his 
handful of men at various points on the road toward 
Mocksville, so as to man and support the batteries, 
there being nowhere more than one hundred and fifty 
xn^w at any point. 



200 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 

The attack began at daylight. By eight o'clock 
the batteries were flanked. The artillery-men fought 
bravely, but were of course soon overpowered and 
compelled to leave their guns in the hands of the 
enemy. A few of the *' galvanized " Irish fought well, 
but the majority went over in a body to the Federals 
soon after the fight commenced, leaving the artillery 
without support, and of course betraying the weak- 
ness of the Confederates. A desultory fight was kept 
up till the suburbs of the town were reached, and then 
all order and subordination were lost, the Confeder- 
ates scattering through the town and to the woods 
beyond. Several of them were wounded, and one or 
two were killed in the town. The loss of the Feder- 
als is unknown, but several were buried on the battle- 
field. A number of Confederates were taken prison- 
ers, some citizens, negroes, etc. By nine o'clock the 
place was in quiet possession of the enemy, who gal- 
loped in with drawn swords and full of strange oaths. 
Many of the citizens, negroes, and children, were in 
the doors and on the side-walks gazing for the first 
time at the Federal uniform. In the desultory running 
fight that was kept up through the streets, one of the 
Irish recruits before mentioned, fighting bravely, was 
shot through the lungs ; but he continued to load, and 
fire as he retreated till he fell on the piazza of Mrs. 
M. E. Ramsay. Though the balls fell thick about 
him, and she was alone with her little children, she 
went out to him and managed to get him inside the 
house, where she nursed and stimulated him the 
greater part of the day, till she could get a physician 



THE LAST ^N-INETY DAYS OF THE WAR. '201 

to him and have him removed to the hospital. He 
said to her, " They have killed me, but I die a brave 
man ; I fought them as long as I could stand." She 
sujDposed that of course his wound was wortal, but a 
fortnight after, to her astonishment, he returned to 
thank her for her kindness. 

Captain Frank Y. McKeely was found in the Ar- 
senal and shot. Lieutenant Stokes, of Maryland, was 
sitting on his horse in front of General Bradley John- 
son's headquarters, when a squad of the enemy dashed 
into the street. An officer in front cried out, *' There's 
a d — d rebel — charge him." The Lieutenant waited 
till the officer was in point-blank range, and then shot 
him through, and putting spurs to his horse fled — 
hotly pursued. One of the pursuers was gaining on 
him, considerably in advance of the rest, and probably 
intended to sabre him ; but the Lieutenant suddenly 
reining his horse aside, let the raider pass, and as he 
passed fired and killed him, and then made good his 
escape. The officer shot proved to be one of General 
Stoneman's staff. 

A small squad of the Confederates- retreated fight- 
ing through the yard and premises of Frank Shober, 
Esq. One of their number was killed in the piazza 
of the house. 

This hand-to-hand fighting in the streets — such in- 
cidents as these, and the fact that Salisbury was an 
especial object of hatred to the invaders as the prison 
depot of so many of their unfortunate comrades, 
whose graves were to be counted there by thousands — 
these things certainly gave General Stoneman every 



202 THE LAST NINETY DATS OP THE WAR. 

excuse for the plunder and destruction of the whole 
town ha,d he chosen to interpret the laws of war as 
did General Sherman. But he did not so interpret 
them ; he did not even fall back upon the reserve that 
he was unable to restrain his justly infuriated soldiers. 
He declined to avail himself of General Gillam's burn- 
ing zeal for the honor of the Union. This latter offi- 
cer was heard to say that, if he had his way, he would 
make the people of Salisbury think " all hell was let 
loose upon them." Another account states that he 
declared that " though horn in Salishury, he would be 
glad to lay it in ashes."* 

But General Stoneman's policy toward the inhabit- 
ants of Salisbury is a very striking illustration of 
the principles which, in a previous chapter, I have en- 
deavored to show were the only true and generous 
and really politic guide for the commanders of an in- 
vading army. Private property was protected, guards 
were stationed, and General Stoneman ref)eatedly 
gave strict orders for the enforcement of quiet and 
protection of the citizens. He himself in person in- 
spected the public stores, which were of course by 
the laws of war doomed to destruction, and refused 
to allow the Confederate Quartermaster's depot to be 
burned lest it should endanger the town. The officers, 
whether willingly or not, seconded their commander. 
Whatever plundering and insolence the people were 
subjected to — and there were a number of such cases 

* Is General Gillam a son of North-Carolina ? I put the note and query for 
the future historian. If so, then we have only another proof that decency and 
good principles are not always hereditary. 



THE LAST mNETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 203 

— was very evidently the work of unauthorized bum- 
mers, who appeared in mortal dread of the guards, 
and did their work hurriedly and furtively. Corn- 
cribs and smoke-houses were entered, horses and 
mules and arms were seized ; but, on the whole, the 
general policy was the sound one of protection to non- 
combatants. 

Early in the morning of the attack several large 
trains with government stores made their escape from 
Salisbury toward Charlotte and Greensboro, but a 
passenger train on the Western road was not so for- 
tunate. Having proceeded a mile or two from town, 
the track was found obstructed ; and as soon as the 
train stopped, a volley was poured into it without 
any demand for surrender. Several passengers were 
wounded, but happily none of the ladies, among 
whom were the widow and daughters of General 
Leonidas Polk. The cars being set on fire, much of 
the baggage belonging to the passengers was burned 
— all that was rescued was plundered — and among 
Mrs. Polk's valuables were found the sword, uniform, 
papers, and other cherished relics of her husband. 
These things were all seized with great triumph, and 
though much that was taken besides was afterward 
restored to Mrs. Polk, no inducements could prevail 
upon the gallant Colonel Slater of the Eleventh Ken- 
tucky Cavalry to return to the widowed lady these 
mementos of her husband. He claimed them as 
" taken on the battle-field," and kept them. 

As soon as the town was quiet, a strong force was 
detailed to attack the railroad bridge across the 



204 THE LAST ISriNETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

Yadkin, six 'miles distant. Here strong fortifications 
on the Davidson side of the river had been erected, 
under Beauregard's supervision, on a hill commanding 
the bridge and the Rowan shore. General York of 
Louisiana, with ten or twelve hundred men — home- 
guards and "galvanized " Irish — defended the bridge : 
its preservation was of the greatest importance to the 
Confederate cause,* and strict orders had been issued 
by General Beauregard to defend it at all hazards. 
At two o'clock P.M., on the twelfth, the raiders ar- 
rived, and brisk skirmishing was kept up on the Row- 
an side. At three o'clock some of the cannon captured 
in the morning on the other side of Salisbury, were 
brought down, and opened on the Confederate batter- 
ies. Heavy cannonading between the two continued 
till dark, when the raiders, thinking the place too well 
fortified to risk an assault, returned to Salisbury, de- 
stroying the railroad as they went. A few Confeder- 
ates were wounded, one or two were killed. The 
Federal loss, if any, is unknown. 

The assailants returned to assist in the destruction 
of the public stores at Salisbury, which I have before 
stated were immense. They had been accumulating 
there for weeks from Columbia, Charlotte, Richmond, 
Danville, and Raleigh. The clothing, provisions, med- 
ical stores, etc., were collected in the main street and 
fired. The length of four entire squares was occupied 
■ by the burning mass, valued at at least a million in 
specie.' Much was given away to negroes and the 
lower class of the white population — much was quietly 
appropriated, and by some who should have knov.n 



THE LAST NIXETT DATS OF THE WAR. 205 

better. The distresses and privations of war make 
times of strong temptation, and the general demorali- 
zation that prevailed all over our* country was no 
greater at Salisbury tlian elsewhere. To people who 
had been half starved for months, and many of them 
half clothed, it was hard to see such quantities of 
sugar, coffee, spice, flour, bacon, luxuries to which 
they liad long been strangers, burning in their streets 
like so much rubbish. The stores were all emptied 
besides of private property — and many people were 
to be seen passing along the streets loaded with what 
they chose. Many soldiers had dozens of coats, shirts, 
etc., piled up before them on their horses. 

The value of the medical stores alone was estimated 
at 1100,000 in gold. It is a little curious that, while 
such an amount was being thrown into the flames, 
one of the surgeons of the Federal army entered the 
ofiice of one of the principal physicians in the j^lace — 
Dr. J. J. Summerell — and was about to carry off all 
his scanty store of medicine ; but upon remonstrance, 
he agreed to divide^ saying, he could not bear to rob 
a brother practitioner. 

On the night of the 12-1 3th the ordnance stores, 
arsenal, foundry, V\dth much valuable machinery, the 
G'ovemment steam distillery, the depots and other 
buildimrs belono-ing: to both the Central and Western 
roads, and other public buildings were fired. The 
night being perfectly still, the sheets of flame rose 
steadily into the air, and the great conflagration was 
plainly visible at the distance of fifteen miles; and for 
several hours the incessant and distinct explosions of 



206 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAE. 

shells and fixed ammunition conveyed the impression 
to the anxious watchers, miles away, in the adjoining 
counties, that a fierce battle was raging. There was 
no hallooing by the soldiers— no shouts — only the crack- 
ling of the flames and the bursting of the shells. Now 
and then a mounted troop swept through the streets, 
the horsemen in j^rofound silence, the lurid flames from 
the burning distillery making their rough faces look 
ghastly enough, while the buttons and other mountings 
of their equipi,nents sparkled in the firelight. 'No one 
thought of sleep that night, not even the cliildren. 

A large building, three stories high, originally built 
for a cotton factory, but for some time past occupied 
by Federal prisoners — all of whom a few weeks pre- 
viously had been sent to Richmond and Wilmington 
for exchange — together with the barracks and all 
other buildings connected with it, were burned ; and it 
may be well imagined that the Federal soldiers felt a 
peculiar satisfaction in the destruction of a spot so 
memorable to them — the scene of so much wretched- 
ness and want and despair. Many of the men with 
Stoneman had been among the prisoners there, and 
many had had brothers and other relatives there. I 
have heard that General Gillam himself had been one 
of the number before his j^romotion. ISTo one who 
knows what the condition of these prisoners was; can 
wonder at any amount of rage expressed by the survi- 
vors and avengers. The way in which both sides, 
during the war, treated their prisoners, is an exceed- 
ingly curious commentary on the boasted Christian 
civilization of the whole country, from Maine to Texas. 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 207 

For the N'orthern side there is no excuse. I'or the 
Southern side there is one — and hut one. Our prison- 
ers were starved, as I have said before, because Ave 
were starving ourselves ; our chiklren were crying for 
bread, and our soldiers were fighting on half-rations 
of parched corn and peas. We could not tell our ene- 
mies this ! We were not to confess to them this fatal 
weakness in our cause ! But what we could do to induce 
their Government to take these poor wretches home and 
give us our own in exchange, we did do. Every induce- 
ment was offered to them again and again in vain. 
So far, then, our skirts are clear. But brutality of 
speech and behavior, cruel indifference to their situa- 
tion, unnecessary harshness and violence to helpless 
unarmed men, diseased and dying — of this there may 
have been much among certain of our officials, and for 
this we will yet have to repent before Him who hears 
the sighing of the prisoner. 

It has been estimated that the loss in buildings 
alone, which were mostly of brick, would reach to half 
a million in specie, and the total loss of all property to 
several millions. Had the war continued, the capture 
of Salisbury would have been a stunning blow to Gen- 
eral Johnston, and would have severely crippled his 
movements. As it was, it is a matter of great regret 
that such a vast auiount of most valuable property 
should have been destroyed just at a time when its 
destruction was.no longer necessary to the overthrow 
of a cause already dead. General Stoneman might 
safely have held Salisbury from the hour he entered 
it, and preserved every dollar's worth of its stores for 



208 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR- 

the advantage of his own government. He might have 
prevented the further flight of the Confederate Govern- 
ment, and President Davis and all his cabinet might 
have been forced to surrender with General Johnston. 
And it would have been better if they had. But Gen- 
eral Stoneman did not know what a brilliant part he 
was playing in the last act of the great tragedy, and 
he hurried to get through with it and leave Salisbury 
as rapidly as he had entered it. On the 13th a terrific 
explosion of the magazine finished the work, and that 
evening the Federals moved off toward Statesville, 
riding most of the night as if nnd^r apprehension of 
pursuit. 

General Stoneman must certainly be alloAved to have 
accomplished his ends with a skill, celerity, and daring, 
which entitle him to high jDraise as a military leader. 
Add to this the higher praise of humanity, and the 
ability to control his troops, and he well deserves 
a higher niche than some who led grand armies on 
great marches. . Salisbury, comparing her lot with 
that of Columbia and Fayetteville, may well afford to 
hold General Stoneman's name in grateful remem- 
brance. 

I have taken no pleasure in this recital of injuries^ 
insults, inhumanity, and breach of faith. The truth of 
history demands that the facts shall be told on both 
sides calmly and with impartiality. The world, which 
has heard so much of one side, should hear the other 
too ; and posterity, at whose bar we shall all stand for 
this four years' work, should have every opportunity 
afforded for a rischteous verdict. And there are other 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 209 

ways in which the truth plainly told may do good. 
People will be enabled, looking at these details, to arrive 
at a just estimate of what war may become, even 
among Christian people, and shudder to invoke its 
horrors lightly, and may teach their children so. How 
many of us knew in the spring of 1861 what was about 
to break out among us — what wide-spread ruin, what 
raging passions, what furies of hell, which once evoked 
will not doAvn at our bidding ? Quiet men, who were 
familiar with the pages of European history and knew 
what Christian armies had done asrain and as^ain in 
the fairest and most civilized portion of her empires, 
these came gravely from their studies with words of 
warning to the gay throngs of young people who were 
cheering each other on to the impending strife. But 
these were the old fogies of that day — cold-blooded — 
unpatriotic — who did not love the South. What a 
short and brilliant programme was laid down ! The 
girls made their silken banners, and the boys marched 
proudly off to glorious victory ; England and France 
would see fair play ; and this dear and sunny South 
was to spring at once ujDward and onward in a career 
of glory. One of the most influential journals in the 
South — one of the soberest — dealing lightly and easily 
with the great issues of the war ; settling at a word 
the boundary lines of the new Southern republic, and 
dotting what were to be our frontier States with a 
chain of forts ; establishing the new war office, and the 
standing army, henceforth to be a necessary feature, 
grew enthusiastic over the splendid resource thus to 
be afforded to our " aristocratic young men of family 



210 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 

and fortune." The army was to be especially for the 
genilemen of the South. Alas ! and alas ! Now, torn 
and bleeding and broken-hearted, humiliated, stripped, 
crushed, disfranchised, and helpless, we may look back 
and learn a lesson. 

It may be well, too, if public attention can be di- 
rected l)y such narratives to an investigation of the 
laws of war, and some inquiry be suggested as to the 
necessity of their being revised and mitigated. And 
it can not but a have a beneficial effect that even vic- 
torious military heroes shall be made amenable to pub- 
lic opinion for the manner in which they have wielded 
the great powers intrusted to them, and find, in some 
cases, their fresh-plucked laurels withering in their 
grasp. 

The actual loss and injury inflicted by the enemy, in 
the progress of the war, on personal and public proper- 
ty, was very fir from being the greatest evil which its 
continuance entailed upon us. I speak not now of 
losses by death. Inter arma leges silent is an old say- 
ing ; and though framed in a dead language, its drift is 
weil understood and acted upon by people who can 
not even read it. The longer the war lasted the more 
evident became the demoralization of our people, and 
their disregard for laws and principles of action by 
which they had been guided all their lives. At the 
break-up respectable citizens, who would once have 
shrunk from even the im^^utation of such conduct, 
helped themselves unblushingly to Government stores 
and public property, even when it had been intrusted 
to them for safe keeping. When their betters set such 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 211 

an example, the common people of com-se threw off all 
restraint; and we could then plainly see how petty, 
compared with the advantages gained, are the taxes 
which we pay for the support of law and government. 
There seemed to be a general feeling, during the last 
ninety days, that there was no government outside of 
the military pressure for conscripts, deserters, and tithes. 
I am reminded of a poor neighbor as I write, who, dur- 
ing the winter of '64-'65, like many others, provided 
his family with wood to which he had no right. Be- 
ing remonstrated with, he said with energy, " There is 
no law in the land in these days," and continued his 
depredations openly. And I do believe the general 
feeling was, " What else can he do, with wood at forty 
dollars a cord?" 

Nor are such fruits of war conlSned to the Southern 
side of the Potomac. The fires that have lit uj) so 
many Northern cities ; the tales of murder, robbery, 
and riot, which have crowded the columns of their 
journals for the past year; and the general lawlessness 
and contempt of authority which prevail there, point 
unmistakably to the dangers which accompany a tri- 
umphant and utterly undisciplined army, whether in 
the enemy's land or returning home flushed with vic- 
tory and demoralized with licensed rapine and riot. 
Did Northern people soberly believe that it was zeal 
for the Union and hatred of secession that j^rompted 
such wholesale plunder in the South ? Let their own 
experience since, and the records of their criminal 
courts within the last year, show, that when plunder is 
to be had, lawless and unrestrained men care little 



212 . THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE "WAE. 

whether it belongs to friend or foe ; and that lust, once! 
aroused and let loose, can not distinguish, and is amen- 
able to no laws. Herein, as in thousands of other in- 
stances, is that saying true, " The measure we mete is 1 
measured to us again." | 

Human nature is indeed a wild beast that has need 1 
to be chained and continually surrounded with re-^ 
straints, or we should prey upon each other as savages 
do, and so lapse into barbarism. Let the experience 
of the last five years teach the people of this great : 
Republic henceforth to jDreserve indissolubly the bonds ■ 
of Peace, that so, as a nation, they may do their ap- 
pointed part toward hastening on the coming of that 
Peince of whose kingdom there shall be no end. 

" Te duce, qui maneant sceleris vestigia nostri 
Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras."* 

♦With Thee for our guide, whatever relics of our crimes remain shall be taken 
away, and free the world from perpetual fears. 



CHAPTER XV. 

IBEDELL COimTY — GENERAL. PALMER'S COURTESY TO MRS. 
VANCE — SUBSEQUENT TREATMENT OF THIS LADY BY FEDERAL 
SOLDIERS — MAJOR HAISIBRIGHT'S CRUELTY IN LENOIR — CASE 
OF DR. BALLEW and OTHERS — GENERAL GILLAM — HIS OUT- 
RAGES AT MRS. HAGLER'S — DR. BOONE CLARK — TERRIBLE 
TREATMENT OF HIS FAMILY — LIEUTENANTS RICE AND MAL- 
LOBRY — ^MRS. GENERAL VAUGHN — MORGANTON. 

Statesville was entered on the night of the 13th, 
and occupied for a few hours only. Long enough, 
however, to insure the destruction of the Government 
stores and raih'oad depot, and of the Iredell Ex- 
press office, a paper which was obnoxious from the 
warmth with which it had advocated the cause of the 
Confederacy. No county in the State had suffered 
more severely than Iredell in the loss of her best and 
bravest sons in the army. The famous Fourth North- 
Carolina regiment was composed of Iredell boys, and 
the colors of no regiment in the service were borne 
more daringly or more nobly. I remember to have 
heard it said, after one of the great battles around 
Richmond, that half the families of Iredell were in 
mourning. When it became known that the Ex- 
press office was to be burned, the ladies and citizens 
plead earnestly that it might be spared for the sake 



214 THE LAST NII-fETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

of the town, which Avas in great danger of being in 
volved in the conflagration. The citizens offered tc 
tear it down and remove the materials to a vacant 
square to be burned, but this was not allowed by the 
officer who had charge of the business. The office 
' was fired where it stood, and in consequence a large 
private dwelling, belonging to Dr. Dean, standing near 
it, was also consumed, and a large family turned out 
houseless and utterly prostrated otherwise — Gen. Sher- 
man's army having just previously destroyed certain 
other resources of theirs. The wind providentially 
blowing in the right direction, saved the town from 
general ruin. One of the citizens, Mr. Frank Bell, 
was cruelly beaten and tortured to make him disclose 
the hiding-place of gold which they suspected he pos- 
sessed. He, however, had none. 

The raiders moved, on the 14th, to Taylorsville, 
Alexander county, and from thence to Lenoir, Cald- 
well county, which they reached on Saturday, 15th, 
and occupied till Monday, 17th. On the road from 
Statesville a part of the command was dispatched in 
the direction of Lincolnton, under General Palmer. Of 
this officer the same general account is given as of 
General Stoneman, that he exhibited a courtesy and for- 
bearance which reflected honor on his uniform, and 
have given him a just claim to the respect and grati- 
tude of our western people. The following pleasant 
story is a sample of his way of carrying on war with 
ladies : Mrs. Vance, the wife of the Governor, had 
taken refuge, from Raleigh, in Statesville with her 
children. On the approach of General Stoneman's army, 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 215 

she sent off to Lincolnton, for safety, a large trunk filled 
with valuable clothing, silver, etc., and among other 
things two thousand dollars in gold, which had been 
intrusted to her care by one of the banks. This trunk 
was captured on the road by Palmer's men, who of 
course rejoiced exceedingly over this finding of spoil 
more especially as belonging to the rebel Governor 
Vance. Its contents were speedily appropriated and 
scattered. But the circumstance coming to General 
Palmer's knowledge, within an hour's time he had 
every article and every cent collected and replaced in 
the trunk, which he then immediately sent back under 
guard to Mrs. Vance with his compliments. General 
Palmer Avas aiming for Charlotte Avhen he was met 
by couriers announcing nev/^s of the armistice. 

There was no plundering allowed in Statesville. 
Mrs. Vance was treated with respect and entirely 
unmolested. But several weeks afterward, when 
Governor Vance was a prisoner in Washington, a squad 
of Federal soldiers came to her residence and carried 
aw^ay every article of furniture in the house. Some of 
this belonged to the Mansion House in Raleigh, and 
had been removed to Statesville for safety at the same 
time when other Government property was sent off. 
The officer who was in command had the grace to 
appear ashamed of his business, and apologized to Mrs. 
Vance repeatedly, stating that he was acting under 
orders, and that it was done at the suggestion of North- 
Carolinians in Raleigh, who desired that the articles 
belonging to the executive mansion should be restored. 
Every thing in the liouse was taken away, private 



216 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

property and all, and not one article ever reached the 
executive, mansion. Two queries occur : First, Who 
were the North-Carolinians who instigated this insult 
to Mrs. Vance ? And second, Whatever did become -of 
the furniture ? Every thing in the way of furniture 
was carried off, and Mrs. Vance, who was then ill, and 
her children were left without even a bed. In less 
than twelve hours after this raid extraordinary 
became known to the people in the town and neigh- 
borhood, the house w^as entirely refurnished with more 
than it had contained previously. I can well imagine 
that there was no one who did not esteem it a privi- 
lege thus to testify their love and respect for the Gov- 
ernor and his family. 

General Stoneman pressed on toward Tennessee 
through Watauga county, with the prisoners, leaving 
General Gillam, with three hundred men, to proceed to 
Asheville 'Oia Morganton. 

Of the prisoners it was estimated there were about 
nine hundred. Many of them were old men past the 
conscript age, sohie were boys, others were discharged 
Confederate soldiers in feeble health or maimed, who 
had been captured at their homes. In regard to them 
no settled course or plan of action seems to have 
been adopted. In some instances they easily escaped, 
or were allow^ed to do so tacitly, and regained their 
homes in a short time. Most'of them, however, were 
dragged on with every circumstance of barbarity and 
cruelty. A few instances may be given illustrative of 
their treatment. 

In Lenoir they were confined in and about the 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 217 

Episcopal church, under a strong guard, with peremp- 
tory orders from General Gillam to shoot every man who 
attempted to escape. The gallant General added, that 
he " would rather have ten men shot than one escape." 
It must be remembered that a number of them were 
over sixty years of age ; some were permanently 
diseased ; some were men who had not walked continu- 
ously five miles for years, or perhaps hardly in their 
whole lives ; and that, when they reached Lenoir, they 
had all of them marched twenty-five and thirty miles 
in eight or ten hours. They had been double-quicked 
a good part of the way from Taylorsville to Lenoir, 
and arrived there on Saturday afternoon nearly 
exhausted with fatigue and hunger. Notwithstand- 
ing their deplorable condition, they had nothing to 
eat after that march till Sunday at ten a.m., and then 
they were only partially supplied from the scanty stores 
of the plundered villagers ; for Lenoir, having been 
pronounced a " rebellious little hole," was sentenced 
to receive its full share of punishment at the hands of 
General Gillam. It was not till the afternoon of Sunday 
that rations were issued. Whenever any of the towns- 
people carried any thing to the prison, the scene was 
said to have been most piteous, so many men begging 
for just one morsel of dry bread. There seemed to be 
an especial spirit of bitterness toward the prisoners 
among the Federal soldiers generally, and in some 
instances among the officers. S. Hambright, Major 
and Provost-Marshal, with headquarters at. the same 
place with General Gillam, was especially insulting to 
citizens, and cruel to the prisoners. Dr. Ballew, a 



218 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

citizen of Lenoir, enfeebled and emaciated with con- 
sumption, was arrested and carried to headquarters. 
Feeling exhausted with the effort to walk there, ho 
sat down on the step^ of the piazza, to await the 
Major's pleasure. It was determined to send him to 
prison, and he was ordered to get up and march, but, 
from his feebleness, not being able to move quickly- 
enough to suit the chivalrous soldier, the Major, to 
help him rise, stepped behind and gave him " a rousing 
hick.'''' The citizens were heartily cursed for taking 
food to them. From Lenoir they were marched ra- 
pidly up to the top of the Blue Ridge ; several gave 
out, several who started from Salisbury died. They 
were all urged forward with threats of death. A 
Lieutenant Shotwell attempted to escape, but being 
overtaken, surrendered. He was then shot down and left 
on the roadside unburied. A Mr. Wilfong, who had 
captured a straggler of Kirk's command, brought him 
into Lenoir, not knowing the Federals were there. 
The tables were of course turned, and he in his turn 
became a prisoner, and was given in charge to his 
former captive, who wreaked such cruel vengeance on 
liim that he died before reaching Greenville, Tenn. 
All who reached Knoxville were sent to Camp Chase, 
Ohio. 

General Gillam deserves especial notice at the hands 
of the historian. All concurrent testimony represents 
him as most supercilious, insulting, and unfeeling. 
His headquarters in Lenoir, were at Mr. Albert Hag- 
ler's. The family were all crowded off into one room, 
while the gallant General and his staff appropriated 



* THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 219 

all the rest of the premises, including kitchen and sta- 
bles. To Miss Sarah Hagler, an accomplished young 
lady, he was especially impertinent, though she parried 
his attacks with the civility of a lady. On one occa- 
sion he said to her rudely, " I know you are a rebel 
from the way you move — an't you a rebel?" She 
replied, " General Gillam, did you ever hear the story 
of the tailor's wife and the scissors ?" " Yes." " Then 
I am a rebel as high as I can reach." Coarseness, 
however, can not always be met playfully, and Mrs. 
Hagler incurred his anger to its fullest extent when, 
in reply to his violent denunciation of the Confederates 
for starving their prisoners, she ventured to suggest 
that the Federal authorities might have saved all this 
suffering had they agreed to exchange and take them 
North, where provisions were plenty. The General's 
reply to this was the giving his men tacit license to 
plunder and destroy the houses of Mrs. H.'s married 
daughter and niece, who lived very near her, and who, 
she had supposed, were to be protected, from his head- 
quarters being at her house. No houses in the place 
suffered more severely than theirs. The house of her 
•daughter, Mrs. Hartley, was pillaged from top to bot- 
tom. Barrels of sorghum were broken and poured 
over the wheat in the granary, and over the floors of 
the house. Furniture and crockery were smashed, 
and what was not broken up was defiled in a manner 
so disgusting as to be unfit for use. Mrs. Clark, the 
niece, was driven out of her house by the brutality of 
her plunderers. Her husband. Dr. Boone Clark, was 
a captain in the Confederate service, had been wound- 



220 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF TKE WAR. 

ed in the battle of Leesburg, early in the war — an 
admirable and most graphic account of which engage- 
ment he wrote for the Raleigh Standard soon after. 
In several subsequent battles he had received severe 
wounds, and though partially disabled by one of them 
at this time, he was endeavoring to raise a company 
of cavalry for home defense, as marauders, under the 
notorious Keith and Blalock,were constantly threaten- 
ing to j3illage Lenoir. These facts were known to some 
of Gillam's men, and they evidently enjoyed the op- 
portunity to plunder his house and insult his defense- 
less wife. He himself was at home, sitting at table, 
when the raiders dashed in town. Seizing his gun,, 
he ran out and secreted himself behind some adjoining 
buildings, and though a colonel did him the honor to 
enter his house almost immediately, and with a squad 
made a thorough search for him., his retreat remained 
undiscovered, and at night he left for more secure 
quarters. The raiders swarmed through the house 
that evening and night, breaking open trunks, ward- 
robes, drawers ; searching for arms and carrying off all 
the valuables, and destroying what they did not want. 
Finding a coat of the Captain's, they cut it to pieces. 
They destroyed all the provisions, all the furniture, 
crockery, and wearing apparel. They tore up fine 
silk dresses into ribbons for their hats, or cut large 
squares out and carefully wrapped up quids of tobacco 
in them and deposited them on the mantel-piece. The 
little daughter's hat and garments w^ere placed on the 
floor, and loathsomely polluted. They even took the 
lady's thimble from her work-box, and carried off the 



THE LAST XINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 221 

likeness of her deceased mother, paying no regard to 
her entreaties. They constantly addressed her, as she 
sat weeping and motionless amid the wreck they were 
making, in the most profane and obscene and insulting 
language, rej^eatedly calling her a liar and other de- 
grading names. They compelled her and her little 
daughter to remain and witness the destruction ; and, 
finally, when there was nothing more to break and 
steal, one of them approached her and thrust his fist 
in her face. As she raised her head to avoid it, he 
struck her forehead, seized her by the throat, cursing 
her furiously. She begged him not to kill her ; he let 
her throat loose then ; seizing the neck of her dress, 
tore it open, snatched her gold watch, which hung by 
a ribbon, tore it off and left her. Half dead with 
fright, she rushed to the door with the child, and amid 
curses and cries of "Stop her!" "Don't let her go!" 
got out of the house, ran down to her aunt's, and fell 
fainting on the. threshold. After she was recovered, 
the ladies begged General Gillam to interfere, but he 
refused, saying, " There were bad men in all crowds." 
In the case of M^s. Hartley he turned his back to the 
ladies without a word. Mrs. Clark then appealed to 
Lieutenant Jerome B.Rice of the Signal Corps, and also 
to Lieutenant Theodore Mallobry in the same command. 
These were gentlemen^ and manifested a determination 
to protect her. One of them returned to her house 
with her and viewed the utter destruction of her house- 
hold property with every appearance of shame and 
indignation. As they entered the house a soldier — 
the last of the gang — ran out.. The Lieutenant had him 



222 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE AVAK. 

arrested and carried to headquarters. When Mrs. 
Clark was called on to identify him as one of the rob- 
bers, he denied having been near her house. " Why," 
said she, " that is a piece of a silk dress of mine round 
your hat now." " Is it ?" said he, coolly taking it off 
and handing it to her ; " well, then, you may have it 
back." This was in the presence of General Gillam, 
for whom, by the way, it was generally observed, the 
men seemed to have no respect. General Brown sent 
a strong guard to Mrs. Clark's house ; but it Vv^as too 
late to save any thing, and she had no redress. 

I have been thus particular to give an account which 
is, after all, a condensed one, of the treatment of one 
Southern lady by certain soldiers of the army of the 
Union. There are thousands of such cases unreported. 
This I present as a sample. So much is said of the 
" unharmonized" attitude of Southern women at pres- 
ent that I think it is as well to let the world see upon 
what ground it is they feel as if some time must elapse 
before they can honestly profess to love their enemies. 

While plundering one house in the village, the ma- 
rauders forced themselves into the chamber of a lady 
while she was in child-birth. With great difficulty 
the attending physician prevented them from plunder- 
ing that room. 

Mrs. General Yaughn was residing in Lenoir at this 
time. It is said that Generals Gillam and Vaughn 
had been friends before the war, and had agreed together 
that if the family of one should fall into the hands of 
the other, they should be protected. General Gillam 
placed a guard at Mrs. Vaughn's house; but as soon as 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE TTAE. 223 

he left the town, two of his men went in and demanded 
her watch. On her refusal they attempted to search 
her. She drew a pistol, but they took it from her be- 
fore she could fire. She resisted their search with all 
her might, and at last they left her without the watch, 
having nearly torn her dress off. Shortly after, the 
same two returned with five others, and with threats 
of violence compelled her to give the watch np. That 
night squads of half-intoxicated men came back and 
committed further depredations in the village and 
neighborhood. The house of Dr. Felix Dula, with all 
its furniture, was burned. This, however, it is con- 
jectured, might have been done by deserters. They 
left Lenoir for Morganton on the lYth, and on tlie way 
burned the house of a Mr. Johnston, one of the home 
guards. On reaching Rocky Ford, on the Catawba 
river, a mile or two from Morganton, they found a 
party of about fifty Confederates, strongly posted on 
the opposite side, well armed, and Avith one brass 
howitzer. This party was under the command of 
Captain George West, Lieutenant-Colonel S. M'Dow- 
ell Tate volunteering with them. They were well 
posted and sheltered on their side, while the enemy 
approached without cover to attempt a very difficult 
ford. A sharp engagement ensued, which resulted in 
General Gillam's w^ithdrawal tow^ard Fleming's Ford, 
a little higher up. He lost about twenty-five, killed 
and w^ounded. Few were wounded. An eye-witness 
says he counted eight dead bodies of Federal soldiers 
floating down the stream. The Confederates lost none, 
their position being so advantageous. At Fleming's 



224 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

Ford General Gillam easily forced his way, the fifty 
Confederates taking to the mountains on finding them- 
selves overpowered here. 

The raiders remained at Morganton a day or two. 
There was very little plundering done in the houses 
here. They exercised their ingenuity in searching for 
hidden treasure out of doors. It seemed to have been 
understood that the Morganton people, warned of 
their approach, had cached most of their valuables. 
These caches were hunted up with unremitting vigor, 
and most of them were discovered and rifled. Many 
amusing stories are current now all through the South, 
of valuable deposits, scarcely hidden at all, which es- 
caped, and some, not so amusing, of others hidden in 
inscrutable places which were pounced upon at once. 
Of a quantity of old family silver buried out of town, 
by a clump of rocks shaded with a persimmon-tree or 
two and a grape-vine, and on the departure of the ene- 
my the owner going out and finding that a camp had 
been made just there, and the camp-fire built just 
over the cache, which was untouched. Of a valuable 
cache made by several families united, in a secluded 
spot in the woods, and found afterward undisturbed 
save by the hoof of a raider's horse having sunk in 
upon it, having evidently caused a stumble, but no sus- 
picion of the cause. Of valuable papers and jewels so 
well hidden that it was months before the owners 
themselves could find where they had put them. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PLUKDERESTG OF COLOKEL CARSON — OF REV. MR. PAXTON — GEN- 
ERAL MARTIN REPULSES KIRBY — GILLAM PLUNDERS DURINa 
THE ARMISTICE — OCCUPATION OF ASHEVILLE — WHOLESALE 
PLUNDER — DISPATCH FROM GENERAL PALMER. 

0:^- the road from Morganton to Asheville General 
Gillani's men went through their usual i^rogramme, 
wherever a house w^as to be plundered and ladies were 
to be insulted and robbed ! At Pleasant Garden one 
of them, feeling that some clean linen was necessary 
to his comfort, demanded a shirt of Coloael Carson. 
The Colonel assured him that the house had been 
thoroughly plundered, and the only shirt remaining to 
him was the one he then had on. Having satisfied 
himself of this fact, the soldier compelled the Colonel 
(an old gentleman) to strip, and carried off his sole re- 
maining shirt. I believe no officers were present at 
the plundering of Colonel Carson's ; but at the house 
of the Rev. Mr. Paxton, an aged and amiable man, a 
minister of the Presbyterian Church, officers were 
present, and countenanced, if they did not directly aid, 
the pillage. They carried off all that was portable, 
even to knives and forks, and destroyed the rest of 
the furniture. Havinsc found some marmalade and 



220 THE LAST XIXETY DATS OF THE ^'AH. 

molasses, they made a mixtm-e and smeared it over 
the bedroom furDiture, etc. Some of them locked Mrs. 
Paxton in her room, and attempted to torture her into 
the disclosure of hidden treasure, if she had such. Her 
cries brought others to the door, and they desisted. 
Mr. Paxton's horse, watch, and all his clothing were 
taken of course. Such were the rudeness and brutali- 
ty which accompanied these robberies, that people 
were thankful to escape with their lives. 

About the time that General Stoneman's return was 
expected in the West, a brigade of infantry, under 
command of a Colonel Kirby, was moved by the Fed- 
erals from Greenville, Tenn., on Asheville, X. C. It 
was supposed they would meet Stoneman there ; but 
they arrived a little too soon, during the second week 
of April, and were met by the Confederates near Camp 
"Woodfire, and so successfully repulsed that they turned 
about at cmce and returned to Greenville. 

The troops by Avhom Kirby was repulsed were a 
part of the command of General J. G. Martin, referred 
to in our first chapter as the originator of the plan 
to furnish our soldiers through the blockade-runners. 
He was, as Governor Yance writes of him, a most 
gallant and efficient officer, especially valuable for the 
prompt energy which he infused into every depart- 
ment of business under his control. . When it was 
found that General Gillam intended to take Asheville, 
General Martin ordered his whole command, consist- 
ing of Palmer's brigade (composed of the Sixty- 
second, Sixty-fourth, and Sixty-ninth North-Carolina, 
and a South-Carolina battery) and Love's regiment of 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 227 

Thomas's Legion, to the vicinity of Swannanoa Gap, 
on the road from Morganton to Asheville. Love's 
regiment was ordered to the Gap. They reached it 
before Gillam did, and after cutting down some trees, 
and making a few other arrangements to receive the 
raiders, waited their approach, and on their advance 
-repulsed them without difficulty. General Gillam 
spent two days at this Gap, vainly endeavoring to 
effect a passage, and finally moved off in the direction 
of Hickory-nut Gap. Palmer's brigade was ordered 
to meet them there ; but General Martin, giving an 
account of this affair, adds, " I regret to say the men 
refused to go." Kumors of General Lee's surrender 
and of Johnston's armistice were floating through the 
country, and men who fought bravely as long as there 
was hope were only too willing to lay down their arms 
at the first news of peace. 

General Martin ordered the South-CaroMna battery 
to Greenville, S. C., their horses being in too bad con- 
dition for active service. On its way it fell in with 
General Gillam, and was captured. On Saturday, 
twenty-second of April, General Martin received no- 
tice of General Johnston's armistice with Sherman, 
and immediately sent out two flags of truce, on differ- 
ent roads, to meet General Gillam. On Sunday after- 
noon he was met on the Hendersonville road, about 
six miles from Asheville. He agreed to abide by the 
truce, and requested an interview with General Mar- 
tin, who accordingly, on Monday morning, twenty- 
fourth, went out to his camp. The interview resulted 
in an agreement that General Gillam should go through 



228 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

Asheville to Tennessee, and that he should be furnished 
■with three days' rations for his men, and that they 
would observe the truce. General Gillam, it should 
be remarked, upon the testimony of his own officers, 
had had official information of the armistice while 
at Kutherfordton, on his way from Swannanoa. But, 
nevertheless, he had continued the same system of 
depredation all along his route from Kutherfordton, 
sweeping the country of horses, mules, carriages, and 
property of every description, and destroying what 
they could not take along. On the twenty-fifth. Gen- 
eral Gillam arrived in Asheville. Perfect order was 
observed. The nine thousand rations required were 
duly issued to him. General Gillam and his staff dined 
with General Martin ; and as he was about to mount 
his horse to join his command, in the evening. General 
Martin asked him if he would give him the forty-eight 
hours' notice provided for in the truce, before renew- 
ing hostilities. General Gillam replied, " Certainly — 
that the notice should he given.'''' 

That night General Gillam left his command en- 
camped not far from Asheville, and went on to Ten- 
nessee. During tlie day, while the Federals were 
coming in, a party of officers dashed into town from 
the French Broad road, in a state of very apparent 
excitement. This was the notorious Colonel Kirke 
and his staff, who had approached at the head of two 
regiments for the openly avowed purpose of plunder- 
ing Asheville, having heard of the dispersion of tlie 
Confederates from Swannanoa, and feeling sure of 
their prize at last. But finding the town quietly 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 229 

occupied by General Gillam, under the terms of the 
armistice, they expressed deep disappointment, and 
swore roundly they would yet return and lay it in 
ashes. Now they were compelled to leave in advance 
of General Gillam.* The Federal army led in its rear 
an immense train of plunder — animals of all sorts, 
and carriages and wagons piled with property — house- 
hold goods and treasures. One load, however, was of 
questionable value, being no less than fifteen negro 
babies, the mothers marching in the crowd. The 
Asheville people had the mortification of seeing the 
guns of the South-Carolina battery, just captured, 
driven through by negroes. N'ot a citizen was visible 
in the streets ; doors and windows were all closed ; 
but I have the best authority — that of a lady — for say- 
ing that from behind curtains and blinds many a glance 
was shot from bright eyes, of contempt and hatred, on 
the blue jackets. Such lightning, however, is unfor- 
tunately innocuous, and not known to produce fatal 
effects outside of romances ; and so the raiders lounged 
carelessly about, or sat down on the street-corners and 
played cards, while waiting for their rations, in perfect 
immunity from such electrical batteries. 

Tuesday night passed quietly, and Asheville vras 
beginning to hope that hostilities suspended would 



* Perhaps it is not generally known in North-Carolina that Colonel Kirke had 
ardent aspirations for the provisional governorship of his beloved native State. 
T saw a letter from him just after the break-up, in which he avowed this noble 
ambition, evidently anticipating no very distant day when a grateful country 
should reward his patriotism and gallantry. By the way, it is said that Colonel 
Kirke also is a native of Salisbury. Both Kirke and Gillam ! I am afraid there 
is a disposition to slander that fine old borough. 



230 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE "WAE. 

prove to be hostilities ended. Our troops had almost 
ceased to exist in an organized form. The town was 
guarded by only one company — Captain Teague's' 
scouts — besides General Martin and his staff, including 
in all about thirty officers. A small party of Federals 
l^assed through during the twenty-sixth, under flag 
of truce, carrying dispatches to General Palmer, who 
was then approaching from Lincolnton by the Hickory- 
nut Gap. At sunset on the twenty-sixth, General 
Brown, in command of a portion of the same troops 
that had just passed through with Gillam, suddenly 
reentered the j^lace, capturing all the officers and sol- 
diers, and giving up the town to jDlunder. The men 
were parolecf to go home, the officers to report to Gen- 
eral Stoneman at Knoxville. 

This, be it remembered, was within twenty-four 
hours after the above agreement with General Gillam, 
on official news of General Sherman's armistice. 

General Martin being arrested, was taken to Gen- 
eral Brown, and after less than an hour's absence, was 
permitted to return home in charge of a United States 
officer. On arriving at his house, he found the ladies 
of his family, with lighted candles, going over the 
house at the bidding of the marauders, lighting them 
while they broke open doors, trunks, drawers, and 
boxes, and helped themselves to what they chose. 
And this was the experience of every house in the 
place that night. Many were entered by three or four 
difierent gangs at once. They swarmed in at every 
avenue of entrance, generally by the back-door, having 
taken counsel with the negroes first. Mrs. Martin re- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAfe. 231 

covered some of her stolen goods by the assistance of 
a guard who was detailed after the house had been 
plundered. ISTot even the town of Fayetteville suflfered 
more severely from pillage. Mrs. James W. Patton 
and her sister were both sick in bed. Their house was 
entered from front and back at the same time. The 
ladies' rooms were entered, they were dragged from 
their beds, their persons and the rooms searched, and 
their valuables taken. This was supposed to have 
been done upon the information of a servant, who had 
told that there were four watches in the house. Of 
these four watches, three were afterward recovered, 
through the agency of a Captain Patterson, Assistant 
Adjutant-General to General Gillam, who had been 
quartered at Mrs. Patton's, and who proved to be one 
of the few gentlemen in that division of the United 
States army. 

Judge Bailey's family suffered as severely as any 
others, everything portable of value being carried off, 
even to the boots from the Judge's feet. The wed- 
ding-rings of his wife and daughter were forced from 
their hands. Other ladies were stopped in the street 
and their jewelry forced from them. Those who ap- 
plied to General Brown, who had the honor to com- 
mand this extraordinary expedition, received no re- 
dress whatever. Dr. Chapman, a well-known and 
widely respected minister of the Presbyterian Church, 
was so entirely robbed of all his goods and valuables, 
that he had not a change of clothes left beside what 
he wore. The Tenth and Eleventh Michigan regi- 
ments certainly Avon for themselves in Asheville that 



232 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE -WAK. 

night a reputation that should damn them to everlast- 
ing fame. No excuse was given for this violation of 
the armistice, except a lame story of their having been 
attacked by General Vaughn and returning to Ashe- 
ville to revenge themselves. General Yaughn was at 
that time in Virginia. On Thursday, parties scoured 
the country in all directions, carrying on the work of 
plunder and destruction. On Friday, they left, having 
destroyed all the arms and ammunition they could 
find and burned the armory. On Friday afternoon, 
they sent off the officers they had captured under a 
guard. The town being left thus without arms or 
protectors, the citizens, remembering Kirke's threats, 
begged General Brown to leave a small force as guard ; 
but he refused, saying, " They might take care of them- 
selves." 

On the twenty-eighth, the following dispatch from 
General Palmer — who was Brown's senior officer — to 
General Martin, released our officers and men from 
their parole, and set the disgraceful circumstance of 
their surprise and capture in its proper light, though 
not stigmatizing it as it deserved : 

Headquaetees op East Tenn. Cav. Div., 
Hickory-Nut Gap Road, 

April 28, 1865. 
Geneeal : I could not learn any of the particulars 
of your capture and that of Colonel Palmer and other 
officers and men, at Asheville, on the twenty-sixth, 
and as our toops at that point were obliged to leave 
immediately, there was no time for me to make the 
necessary investigation. 



ad|v 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 233 

1 therefore ordered your release on a parole of honor, 
to report to General Stoneman. 

On further reflection, I have come to the conclusion 
that our men should have given you, under all the cir- 
cumstances, notice of the termination of the armistice, 
and that in honor we can not profit by any failure to 
give this notice. You will therefore jDlease inform all 
the officers and soldiers paroled by General Brown 
under the circumstances referred to, that the parole 
they have given (which was by my order) is not bind- 
ing, and that they may consider that it was never 
given. 

Regretting that your brother officers and yourself 
should have been placed in this delicate position, I am. 
General, respectfully your obedient servant, 

William J. Palmee, 
Brevet Brigadier-General Commanding. 

General J. G. Martin, Asheville. 

The citizens of Asheville also owed it to General 
Palmer's interference that two regiments of negroes, 
which had been sent over into Yancey county, and 
which were bearing down upon Asheville, (it was said, 
at the suggestion and with the concurrence of Kirke and 
Gillam,) for the purpose of jDlunder and arson, were 
countermanded and sent over into Tennessee. 

The Asheville pillage concludes such accounts of 
General Stoneman's remarkable raid through Western 
Carolina as I have been able to collect. A rich har- 
vest of incident yet remains for the future historian. 
I have done little more than indicate his route. Much 



234 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

of the above is taken verbatim from a ms. narrative 
furnished me, at my request, by Dr. R. L. Beall, of 
Lenoir, so admirably and accurately prepared that I 
hope it will be given to the public entire at no distant 
day. It gives me pleasm-e to acknowledge here my 
indebtedness to this gentleman, and my thanks for the 
generous public spirit he has displayed in his invalu- 
able contribution to these pages. 



CHAPTER XYII. 

SURRElNrDEK OF GENERAL LEE — WHY NORTH-CAROLHSTA COULD 
]S^OT HA YE TAKEN MEASURES TO SEND CO:smiSSIONERS — RE- 
YIEW — THE COAL-FIELDS RAILWAY — DIFFICULTIES OF TRANS- 
PORTATION — PROYISIONS— THE LAST CALL — RECREANTS — PRI- 
TATIONS — THE CONDITION OF THE PRESS. 

ISToT till we had seen General Lee's farewell to his 
army, printed on a slip from the Danville Hegister 
office, and read in household circles with tears and 
sobs — not till then did we finally and fairly give up 
the Southern cause, and feel that it was indeed lost. 
That (for us) dismal fact once established, the large 
majority — I may say, the great body of Southern peo- 
ple — surrendered with their beloved and trusted leader. 
Here and there were doubtless some resolved still to 
blind themselves, to hope against hope, who talked 
wildly of collecting the scattered fragments of our 
armies, and prolonging the war beyond the Mississip- 
pi — or somewhere ; but they were the exceptions, few 
and far between — rari nantes — who took counsel of 
their desperation rather than of their reason. For all 
men knew now, what had long been feared and sus- 
pected, that the ground on which we stood was hol- 
low, and had given way hopelessly and forever, and 



236 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

that now we were to pay tlie reckoning of our four 
years' madness. 

If ISTorth-Carolina had, through her Executive, anti- 
cipated the final crash, and after the failure of the 
peace mission to Fortress Monroe, had endeavored to 
treat separately with the United States Government, 
and be the first to tender her submission, (as there 
were some who would fain have had her try the experi- 
ment,) if our State had taken this stej), four genera- 
tions would not have heard the last of it. The whole 
failure of the cause would in time have been attrib- 
uted to the treachery and faint-heartedness of Old 
Kip, as there are even now those who say it was the 
croakers who ruined us, and that Generals Lee and 
Johnston should not have surrendered so lightly. Be- 
sides the infamy, we should have gained ahsolutely 
nothing^ as is plainly indicated by the course pursuing 
and pursued of the United States Government. 

Governor Graham, as our representative in the Con- 
federate Senate, and from his position, high prestige^ 
and extended reputation, commanding the entire con- 
fidence of our people, might very well recommend that 
some steps should be taken, if possible^ to avert the 
approaching crash, and spare the State the horrors of 
military subjugation. This it was his duty to do ; for 
to him more than any other man in the State, our peo- 
ple looked for guidance, and for some indication of the 
policy proper to be pursued in circumstances so criti- 
cal and so desperate. But if Governor Vance had 
moved in the matter of sending commissioners to 
General Sherman one week sooner than he did, or 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE T7AR. 237 

had taken one step looking toward reconciliation, or 
submission, or negotiation, at any time previous to 
the second week of April, 1865, he would in all prob- 
ability have been arrested by our military authorities 
as a traitor. There was positively nothing that with 
honor or credit could have been done to meet the 
United States army sooner than it was done. Our 
affairs were at a dead-lock from the time of the 
adjournment of the Confederate Congress. Let those, 
therefore, who may yet be inclined to deplore that 
certain steps were not taken by our Executive, be 
satisfied that the course pursued was the only one 
possible. There is no room for misconstruction or 
misrej)resentation in the future. Inaction in certain 
great and supreme moments is the highest wisdom, 
the truest dignity, as the Indian who finds his bark 
within the sweep of the rapids, and on the verge of 
the abyss, folds his arms and awaits the inevitable 
plunge with self-possession and calmness. 

North-Carolina had nothing to retract, nothing to 
unsay, no pardon to beg. She had acted deliberately 
in joining the Southern cause. She had given her 
whole strength to it, with no lukewarm adherence; 
and now, in the hour of acknowledged defeat and fail- 
ure, she did not attempt to desert, or abjectly bespeak • 
any favors for herself on the ground of her anti-seces- 
sion record or proclivities. And when the negotia- 
tions were completed and jDcace was finally announced, 
it would not be difiicult to say what feelings most pre- 
dominated amongst us. We had desired peace — an 
end to the bloodshed and to the impending starvation 



238 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 

of women and children. Peace we had longed and 
prayQ.d for; but not this peace. The reiinion was not 
this reunion. With all her former attachment to the 
old Union — with all her incredulity as to the stability 
or possibility of a separate independent Confederacy 
of the Southern Slates, even in case of its triumphant 
establishment — with all her sober conservative princi- 
ples — I will venture to say, that there were not five 
hundred decent men within the limits of ISTorth-Caro- 
lina who could be found to rejoice in her military sub- 
jugation, or who, under such circumstances, welcomed 
the reappearance of the Stars and Stripes as our na- 
tional emblem. I have never yet seen one who did, 
or who was, at any rate, willing to avow it. At the 
same time, I must say, I have never seen one who 
evinced any intention of other than an honest accept- 
ance of the situation, and a determination to do their 
whole duty and make the best of the inevitable. 

Looking back at our delusions, errors, and mis- 
calculations for the four years of. the war, the wonder 
is, that the Confederacy lasted as long as it did. The 
last six months of its existence were indeed but' mere 
outside show of seeming. That Richmond was doom- 
ed, was patent to all shrewd observers in the fall of 
1864; and there was probably not a member of the 
Confederate Congress who did not know it when he 
took his seat at the beginning of its last session. It 
certainly reflects very little credit on the wisdom or 
the patriotism of that body that they did not, before 
adjourning, take some steps in concert to notify their 
respective constituents of their opinion as to the situ- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 239 

ation, and give some indication of the course they 
judged their States should pursue. Respect for Pres- 
ident Davis, who was well known to be extremely averse 
to any movement -looking toward reconstruction, and 
who refused to contemplate the event of our subjugation 
as possible — due respect for him may have influenced 
the extraordinary reticence of our Congress ; but it is 
more probable that an undue regard for their own 
political reputation and influence was the prime object 
with most of them. "Whatever it was, history will 
point with a dubious expression to our representatives, 
each nudging his neighbor and desiring him to go for- 
ward — all convinced of the hopelessness of the cause, 
yet almost no man bold enough to say so iDublicly. 

The Confederacy did not fail for want of genius to 
direct our military operations, nor for lack of the best 
qualities that go to make good soldiers in our armies, 
nor for lack of devotion and self-sacriiice among our 
people ; for they who most doubted the wisdom of our 
policy or of our success gave as freely as the most 
sanguine. The history of the rise and fall of the Con- 
federate currency will be a singularly interesting and 
instructive lesson if it should ever be honestly written. 
Its steady, unchecked decline but too surely marshaled 
us the way we were going, and in the successive stages 
of its destruction we may read as in a mirror the story 
of our own facile descent. 

After General Grant had succeeded in cutting the 
Petersburg Railroad, the authorities at Richmond 
looked with anxiety to the Deep River coal-fields in 
our State as the point where workshops could be lo- 



240 THE LAST inXETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

cated. Before that time there was but little interest 
felt or expressed in the struggle ISTorth-Carolina was 
making to get a road opened to them ; but when the 
Richmond coal-fields were almost surrounded by the 
enemy, Chatham county, in our State, became an object 
of great interest to the Government. All the heads 
of departments were at once willing to lend a helping 
hand to the Raleigh and Chatham Coal-fields road. 
Tlie iron from the Danville road, which had been 
taken up on account of the necessity of relaying that 
road with a more heavy rail, (taken from the Char- 
lotte and Statesville road,) was granted to it, and a 
part of it was already on the way when Sherman ar- 
rived in Raleigh. 

It is an interesting and suggestive fact connected 
with the want of transportation facilities in our last 
days, and showing the dire extremity to which we 
were reduced, that coal was carried from Deep River 
by rail and river ^^ast Fayetteville to Wilmington, 
thence by rail via Goldsboro, Raleigh, and Greensboro, 
to supply the government workshops in Salisbury 
and Charlotte. South-Carolina also sent trains for it 
to Wilmington. This coal was pronounced to be of 
the first quality, equal to the Cumberland coal, and 
one hundred per cent superior to the Richmond for 
blacksmith purposes. This want of transportation 
was one of the many stumbling-blocks in the way of 
the fainting Confederacy, and connected wdth the 
scarcity of provisions, and the strict military surveil- 
lance established in every district, brought many of 
us to the verge of starvation. Provisions were con- 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE W AK. 241 

fined by military order to particular districts, each 
general taking care of his own. I have been told by 
Kemp P. Battle, Esq., our present State Treasurer, at 
that time President of the Raleigh and Chatham road, 
that on one occasion he was compelled — though he could 
have bought an abundance of provisions in Eastern 
Carolina — to send for bacon to South-western Geor- 
gia. He had to go to Richmond to see Secretary 
Seddon himself, and send an agent to General Beau- 
regard at Charleston, in order to get permission to 
move it to North- Carolina. He was endeavoring on 
one occasion to get some corn for his own family up 
to Raleigh from his plantation in Edgecombe county, 
when the general in command of that department 
seized it, and in reply to application for it said, "If 
the owner is in the field, he may have his corn ; if other- 
wise, not." In this connection what were called "the 
bonded plantations" were a curious institution in 
those latter days, which greatly added to the distress 
of ou;- non-producers. For instance, the owner of a 
large estate with slaves, in order to keep an overseer 
out of the army to attend to it, gave bond with good 
security to deliver to the Government, or to soldiers' 
fiimilies, all his surplus produce at Government prices. 
By this arrangement of course our large planters 
could only sell their produce at much below the mar- 
ket price, and in fact for almost nothing, considering the 
value of our cui'rency. And even this the Government 
did not pay. It died in debt to many : to Mr. Battle 
for nearly his whole crop of 1 864. With great difficulty 
he got from a quartermaster, in March, 1865, six thou- 



242 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

sand dollars, which he immediately exchanged for 
fifty-seven dollars in gold. Besides this the Govern- 
ment impressed half the working mules, a source alone 
of no little vexation and distress among our small 
farmers. Our quartermasters were not always fair in 
their assessment, nor competent to decide. 

The difficulties in the way of procuring provision 
can hardly be imagined by any but those who lived 
through that time. One of the last resorts was to 
smuggle cotton to the Chowan country in exchange 
for bacon, jiound for pound. The greatest irregula- 
rities, of course, prevailed in different parts of the 
South. In some of the central counties of the Gulf 
States provisions were almost a drug in the market, 
(there being no transportation,) while here and in the 
army we were starving. 

One of the last desperate expedients of our Govern- 
ment, and which bore as hardly on our people as any 
other, was the calling out of men between the ages of 
forty-five and "fifty, and the Junior Reserves, mere 
children who should have been at. home with their 
mothers. When the heads of families were taken 
away, often leaving a houseful of girls only to assist 
the mother to make bread, the distress and trouble 
were most piteous. x\t first the Government was in- 
clined to be liberal in exemptions, but in the last 
ninety days all were taken. 

On some counties of our State there was a disposi- 
tion to resist or evade this wholesale conscription, 
and there were in consequence many deserters, many 
of whom lived by plundering their neighbors, and 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 243 

thus added to the general confusion and anxiety and 
peril of the times. Many acts of violence were com- 
mitted in certain localities. Their expedients to 
escape capture, the modes of living they resorted to, 
the singular hiding-places they improvised or elabo- 
rated, would make an amusing and curious chapter in 
the history of the war — only these are the points 
which historians who desire to represent a people as 
unanimous in a great national struggle for rights and 
liberty do not generally care to present. If any of 
the immortal three hundred faltered on the way to 
Thermopylae we have never been told of it. I know 
that we were greatly mortified to hear the stories that 
were told by those who were sent in search of our re- 
creants. It was a severe shock to our high-strung 
thories of Southern chivalry and patriotism, to think 
of Southerners hiding in dens and caves of the earth, 
resolved with great constancy not to be martyrs, 
having to be unearthed in these burrows and dragged 
out to the fight. One warrior lived for weeks in a 
hollow tree, fed by his wife ; another was conscripted 
from beneath his own hen-house, where he had dug 
out a sort of grave, into which, well supplied with 
blankets, he descended in peace every morning. One 
took possession of an old, deserted, and forgotten 
mine in his neighborhood, and by a skillful disposal 
of brush and rubbish at the entrance, kept house quite 
comfortably for months, plying his trade of shoe- 
maker meanwhile, and supplied with food from home. 
The women, in such cases, were the instigators of the 
skulking. One soldier returning to his regiment, after 



"244 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

a furlough at home hi a cei'tain county, said, " He'd be 
d — d if Jeff Davis wouldn't desert too if he were to 
stay at awhile." 

The history of our personal privations, our house- 
hold expenses, our public donations, and our taxes, 
will be a curious study of domestic and political econ- 
omy combined. People who before the war had lived 
up fully to incomes of two thousand dollars a year, 
were reduced to less than one tenth of that sum, and 
are fully qualified now to give an answer to the ques- 
tion of how little one can live on. Fifty dollars in 
gold would have been gladly taken in exchange for 
many a whole year's salary in Confederate currency 
for the last year or two. Even now it is an inexpli- 
cable mystery to me how people with moder'ate sala- 
ries lived who had families to feed and clothe. It was 
done only by confining themselves strictly to the most 
common and coarsest articles, and by an entire renun- 
ciation of all the luxuries and most of the comforts of 
life. When tallow was thirty dollars per pound, peo- 
ple necessarily sat in darkness. I have walked from 
end to end of our town at night and not observed half 
a dozen lights. If we did not realize Charles Lamb's 
notion of society, as it must have existed before the 
invention of lights, when people had to feel about for 
a smile, and handle a neighbors cheek to be sure that 
he understood a joke, it was because lightwood-knots 
,were plentiful, and turpentine easy of access. 

The condition of the press was a striking commen- 
tary on the state of things among us. Some pains 
have been taken to secure an accurate list of our State 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE V/AR. 245 

papers fi'om an entirely reliable source. At tlie com- 
mencement of tlie war there were but two daily- 
papers in the State ; at the close, there were four in 
the city of Raleigh alone. Of fifty-seven papers in 
existence in May, 1861, twenty-six ceased during the 
war. There are thirty-three now in the State, of 
which ten are dailies. People who had never taken 
more than their own county weekly in all their lives? 
found the Kichmond dailies a necessity during the 
w^ar, so great was the general anxiety to have the lat- 
est new&, and above all from the army. The post- 
offices were besieged for the dingy half-sheets that 
came freighted with momentous intelligence for us. 
The Fayetteville Observer and the North- Carolina 
Freshyterian were the only two papers in the State 
whose dimensions were not reduced to a half sheet. 
The Fayetteville Observer had been for forty years 
one of the most ably edited, most sterling, and most 
influential journals in the State, and I may add, in the 
whole Southern country.* Its influence for good all 
through that long period can hardly be overrated. 
The editor, E. J. Hale, was an old-line whig in poli- 
tics — a conservative of the strictest sort. His paper 
ranged side by side with the National Intelligencer^ 
the Richmond Whig, and the other noble old jour- 
nals of that school which had stood as breakwaters for 
more than a generation against the incoming tide of 
radicalism North and South, but were SAvept away at 

* The writer might have added — or iu America. Its editor, Blr. Hale, is a 
gentleman of broad intellect, lai-ge information, and rare journalistic ability. — 
Ed. Watchman. 



246 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

last in the great flood. Mr. Hale opposed the doc- 
trine of secession, and resisted its movement as long 
as it was possible to do so. Mr. Lincoln's call for 
seventy-five thousand men to coerce the South first 
aroused his opposition to the United States Govern- 
ment ; and after this State had gone over he support- 
ed her Act, and supported the war with all his power, 
giving his sons, giving most liberally of all his sub- 
stance, and devoting his paper enthusiastically to the 
benefit of the army, and the upholding of the State 
and general government. For though no admirer in 
past times of Mr. Davis's record as a Democrat poli- 
tician, yet when he was elevated to the post of Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy, and became the representa- 
tive of the Southern people, no man gave him a more 
generous support. His paper was published Aveekly 
and semi- weekly without intermission, and with a con- 
stantly increasing circulation and influence, until the 
appearance in Fayetteville of General Sherman's army, 
on the twelfth of April, 1865, when the office was en- 
tirely destroyed, and the fruits of a lifetime of labor 
scattered to the winds. The oflice of the N'orth- Car- 
olina Presbyterian was also destroyed at the same 
time. 

The Raleigh Standard^ edited by W. "\Y. Holden, 
was for many years the leading organ of the Demo- 
cratic party in the State ; indeed it may be said to 
have been the creator and preserver of that party, and 
was perhaps the most widely-circulated and influential 
of all our journals, for its reputation was not confined 
to the State. It was edited with marked ability by a 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 247 

man, unsurpassed as a party tactician, who thorouglily 
understood his business, and who always kept his 
powder dry. During the first two years of the war 
all parties seemed melted down and fused into one by 
the general ardor and excitement of the times ; and 
our heretofore antagonist papers presented a most 
edifying spectacle of concord and agreement. In 
1863, Mr. Holden seeing no prospect of a favorable 
end to the war by fighting, began to advocate a resort 
to negotiation upon the basis of possible reconstruc- 
tion. This speedily rendered him obnoxious to those 
of us who desired the war to go on, preferring even 
military subjugation to peaceful reconstruction ; while 
it drew more closely to his support those who desired 
peace on any terms. The state of feeling between 
these two parties came to be such that an internecine 
war among ourselves might have broken out at any 
time. It was excessively difficult and dangerous for 
our public men to move either way. A party of sol- 
diers passing through Raleigh, in September, 1863, 
mobbed the Standard office, and the compliment was 
returned, by the friends of Mr. Holden mobbing the 
office of the war paper, conducted at that time by John 
Spelman, under the title of the State Journal, Mr. 
Holden deemed it prudent to suspend the issue of his 
paper for two months in the spring of 1864, in conse- 
quence of the passage of the act suspending the writ 
of habeas corpus — suspended also for a day or two on 
the arrival of General Sherman's army. 

The State Journal changed hands and name in 1864. 
Under the title of The Confederate^ and edited by Col- 



248 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 

onel D. K. McRae, it became the daily organ of the 
Confederate Government in this State, and continued 
to advocate the policy of our chief and the indefinite 
continuance of the war till within three days of Gen- 
eral Sherman's entrance into Raleigh, when the office 
was entirely destroyed. It was edited with much 
spirit and ability, but with singular audacity and bit- 
terness. 

The organ of Governor Vance's administration was 
The Conservative^ established in 1864 as a daily, and 
continuing till General Sherman's arrival, when it 
shared the fate of the Confederate^ being utterly 
destroyed, except one small press, which General 
Slocum carried away with him. The Progress^ daily, 
followed the lead of the Standard in politics, and like 
the Standard^ was suspended for only a day or two 
on the occupation of Raleigh. It had the reputation 
of being the earliest and sprightliest retailer of news — 
generally ahead of its competitors in that department. 
All these, as well as all others in the Confederacy, with 
a few exceptions, were printed on half-sheets of ex- 
ceedingly dingy pajoer, and their price ranged from 
twenty-five dollars to fifty dollars for six months. No 
subscriptions were taken for a longer period, in conse- 
quence of the steady decline in value of our currency. 
The typography and general appearance, to say noth- 
ing of their matter, would have rendered them objects 
of curiosity in any part of the civilized world, and 
afford a close resemblance to the journals published in 
the days of the Revolution of I'ZVG. Such was the 
scarcity of paper among us, that they disap^^eared as 



THE LAST NINETY- DAYS OF THE WAR. 249 

fast as tliey were received ; and a complete file of one 
of our Confederate papers, which would be an invalu- 
able possession for an historical society fifty years 
hence, is probably even now an impossibility. 

All literary influences were of course greatly check- 
ed and straitened, while our people held their breath 
in suspense as to the issue of the war. Colleges were 
closed, schools went on lamely for want of teachers, 
who were in the 'army, and for want of text-books. 
An eflbrt was made here and there to supply the in- 
creasing demand for grammars, arithmetics, readers, 
and primers ; but the paper was coarse and dark, and 
the type was old and worn — the general getting 
up of these home-made books affording the clearest 
evidence of the insuri^^ountable difficulties under which 
our people labored in endeavoring to make books while 
struggling for bread. Some of them ran the blockade, 
being sent abroad to be stereotyped. Some of them 
need only a new dress to take their place as standards 
in any school in the country now ; but the majority of 
them may be set down as failures. The common- 
schools, kept going at first, shared at last in the gen- 
eral decline and relaxation of order, and were hardly 
in existence at all at the close. As to books from 
abroad^— magazines, papers, etc. — it may well be im- 
agined that in the interior of the Confederacy at least, 
we were at a standstill in regard to all such means of 
improvement or information. Occasionally a copy of 
the JLondo7i Tlmes^ or one or two of the leading New- 
York journals found its way from Kichmond, or Wil- 
mington, or Charleston, and was sent from house to 



250 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE Y\^AE. 

house until utterly worn out. Occasionally some en- 
terprising publishing house, getting hold of a copy of 
the latest English novel, would issue a reprint of it, 
solitary copies of which circulated through a county, 
and soon shared the fate of the papers. Northern 
magazines or books were but little in request, and lit- 
tle read if obtained.* I am by no means certain that 
the loss of the current " light literature " of the day 
was a loss much to be deplored. Such privations may 
rather be classed amono: the benefits of the war. 



* But one number of Harper''s Magasine was seen at Chapel Hill during the 
war ; this ran the blockade from Nassau : and one number of the London Quar- 
terly JReview, found among the effects of Mrs. Rosa Greenhow, which floated 
ashore from the wreck in which she perished. Among such of her books as were 
recovered, much damaged and stained with sea-water, was her narrative of her 
imprisonment in Washington, just published in London, and the MS. of her private 
journal kept during her visit to London and Paris. Her elegant wardrobe was 
sold at public sale in Raleigh, by order of the Confederate Government, for the 
benefit of her daughter in Paris. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE UNIVERSITY — ITS EAKLY HISTORY — ITS CONTINUED 
GROWTH — THE ARDOR OF THE YOUNG MEN — APPLICATION 
FOR RELIEF FROM CONSCRIPTION — GOVERNOR SWAIN TO 
PRESIDENT DAVIS — ANOTHER DRAFT ON THE BOYS — A 
DOZEN BOYS IN COLLEGE WHEN SHERMAN COMES ; AND THE 
BELLS RING ON — " COMMENCEMENT " IN 1865 — ONE GRAD- 
UATE — HE PRONOUNCES THE VALEDICTORY — CONCLUSION. 

As to the State University, perhaps more than a 
mere reference to its condition at the close of the war 
may not mijustly form part of a contribution to our 
State history, since its influence and reputation have 
been second to those of no similar institution in the 
country, and its benefits have been widely diffused 
through every State of the Confederacy. Its Revolu- 
tionary history is not uninteresting in this connection. 
At the very time when all our State interests lay pros- 
trate and exhausted from the Revolutionary struggle, 
the very time when a superficial observer would have 
thought it enough for the people to get bread to eat 
and clothes to wear, our far-seeing patriots, who knew 
well that without education no state can become great, 
and that the weaker we were physically the more need 
there w^as for intellectual force and power to enable 
us to maintain our stand among the nations — these 



252 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAR. 

wise men projected and laid the foundations of a State 
literary institution, which, uncontrolled and uncon- 
taminated by party politics or religious bigotries, 
should be an honor and. a benefit to the common- 
wealth through all future generations. General Davie 
may be said to have been the father of the'University, 
though every man of distinction in the State at that 
time manifested a deep and cordial interest in its es- 
tablishment. ^ 

Most of my readers are sufficiently familiar with the 
history of the State to be aware that, before the Revo- 
lution, the mother country w^ould permit no college or 
university or school to be established but upon certain 
conditions utterly repugnant to principles of civil and 
religious liberty. The charter of Queen's College, at 
Charlotte, Mecklenburg county, (the college, town, 
and county, all three being named in loyal compliment 
to his queen,) was disallowed by George IIL, because 
other than members of the Established Church of 
England were appointed among the trustees. This 
act of tyranny did more to arouse the revolutionary 
spirit than the Stamp Act and all other causes com- 
bined. The money that belonged to the common- 
school fund w^as squandered by the mother pountry in 
the erection of a palace for the royal governor — the 
most splendid edifice of the time on the continent. 
And at the close of the war for independence, so im- 
poverislied was the country that the General Assem- 
bly could contribute nothing toward the establish- 
ment of the University, beyond endowing it with 
doubtful debts, escheats, and derelict property. So 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 253 

that if aid had not been given from private sources, it 
would never have struggled into existence. At the 
first meeting of the trustees, Colonel Benjamin Smith, 
the aid-de-camp of General Washington and subse- 
quent Governor of the State, made a donation of 
twenty thoQsand acres of Chickasaw lands. Major 
Charles Girard, who had served throughout the perils 
of the war, childless in the providence of God, adopted 
the newly-born University, and bestowed on it prop- 
erty supposed to be equal in value to forty thousand 
dollars. General Thomas Person, the old chief of the 
Kegulators, gave in cash ten hundred and twenty-five 
dollars* to the completion of one of the buildings ; 
and Girard Hall, Person Hall, and Smith Hall, pre- 
serve in their names the grateful remembrance of the 
earliest and most munificent patrons of the institution. 
It is a striking evidence of the poverty of the times 
that the ladies of the chief city of North-Carolina 
were able to present only a quadrant in token of their 
interest in the new undertaking, and the ladies of 
Raleigh a small pair of globes. 

In 1795, the first student arrived, and from that day 
to this the Avhole course of the University has been 
one of great and steadily increasing reputation and 
usefulness. Dr. Joseph Caldwell was jjresident from 
1796 to 1835, (with the exception of four years, when 
Pev. Dr. Chapman presided,) when the Hon. David 
L. Swain was appointed his successor, and he still re- 
mains at the head, the oldest college president in the 

* There was then, as now, no money in the country, and this was the largest 
cash donation ever received by the University. 



254 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE T7AE. 

United States, and one of the most successful. It is a 
remarkable fact, and one strongly illustrative of the 
conservative tone of our society, and of our North- 
Carolina people in general, that for the long period 
of seventy years there have been virtually but. two 
presidents — that two of the senior professors have re- 
mained for forty years each, one of them occupying 
the same chair for that whole period. Another pro- 
fessor has held his chair for twenty-eight years, an- 
other for twenty-four, another for seventeen years. I 
doubt if any other college in the country can show a 
similar record. During the five years immediately 
preceding the war, the average number of students 
was about four hundred and twenty-five — a larger 
number than Avas registered at any similar institution 
in the Union except Yale. The average receipts for 
tuition exceeded twenty thousand dollars per annum ; 
and it is another circumstance which probably has no 
parallel in American colleges, that with a meagre en- 
dowment, the munificent patronage of the public en. 
abled the authorities of the institution to make perma- 
nent improvements in the edifices and grounds, and 
additions to the library and apparatus, amounting in 
value, as exhibited by the rej^orts of the trustees, to 
the sum of more than a hundred thousand dollars ! 
This was efiected by skillful financiering, and by giving 
the faculty very moderate salaries, and is a striking 
illustration at least of N"orth-Carolina thrift and care- 
ful "management. Since 1837, moreover, the faculty 
have been authorized to receive without charge for 
tuition or room-rent, any native of the State possessed 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAE. 255 

of the requisite endowments, natural and acquired, 
whose circumstances may make such assistance neces- 
sary. About ten young men annually have availed 
themselves of this privilege, and these have in nume- 
rous instances won the highest honors of the Uni- 
versity, and attained like distinction in the various 
walks of life. Two remarkable cases of this character, 
presented during the discussion of the proposition to 
extend temporary relief to the iTniversity, in the last 
General Assembly, must be fresh in the remembrance 
of many of my readers. In addition to the beneficence 
of this general ordinance, the two Literary Societies 
of the institution have each annually defrayed the en- 
tire expenses of one or more beneficiaries, during the 
time referred to, and these recipients of their bounty 
have rendered service and occupy positions of emi- 
nence and usefulness which offer the highest encour- 
agement to perseverance in such benefactions. An 
account current between the State and the University 
for the past quarter of a century, will show the amount 
of the tuition and room-rent of those young men, added 
to the benefactions of the Societies, is greatly in ex- 
cess of all the direct contributions for its support de- 
rived from the j)ublic authorities. Nay, more, that 
these sums, added to the hundred thousand dollars 
resulting from the net earnings of the institution, were 
quite equal in amount to the entire endowment now 
annihilated by the repudiation of the war-debt, and 
the consequent insolvency of the Bank of North-Caro- 
lina, in the stock of which more than the entire en- 
dowment WHS invested. 



256 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OP THE WAR. 

Can any other College in the United States say as 
)nuch ? 

At the oj^ening of the war, the ardor with which the 
young men rushed into the military service may be 
inferred from the fixct that of the eighty members of 
the Freshman class, but one remained to continue his 
education, and he was incapacitated by feeble health 
from joining his comrades in the field. Five members 
of the faculty volunteered for the war ; and those who 
remained in their chairs, being incapacitated by age 
or by their sacred profession from serving their coun- 
try otherwise than as teachers, resolved to keep the 
doors of the University open as long as a dozen boys 
could be found amid the din of arms who might be 
able to profit by it. AVhen conscription was resorted 
to, to fill up the depleted armies of the South, the 
trustees resolved to appeal to President Davis in be- 
half of the University, lest it should be entirely broken 
up by too rigid an enforcement of the laAV. The re- 
sults were an important part of our State history dur- 
ing the war, and embodied facts which liad a signifi- 
cant influence at the close. 

"Raleigh, October 8, 1863. 

" At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Uni- 
versity this day, present : His Excellency Governor 
Vance, President ; W. A. Graham, Jonathan "Worth, 
D. M. Barringer, P. H. Winston, Thomas Ruffin, J. H. 
Bryan, K. P. Battle, Charles Manly. 

" Besolved^ That the President of the University be 
authorized to correspond with the President of the 



THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 257 

Confederate States, asking a suspension of any order 
or regulation which may have been issued for the con- 
scription of students of the University, until the end 
of the present session, and also with*a view to a gen- 
eral exemption of young men advanced in liberal 
studies, until they shall complete their college course. 
" That the President of the University open corre- 
spondence with the heads of other literary institutions 
of the Confederacy, proposing the adoption of a gen- 
eral regulation, exempting for a limited time from 
military service the members of the two higher classes 
of our colleges, to enable them to attain the degree 
of Bachelor of Arts. 

" Charles Manly, Secretary." 

In accordance with this resolution, Governor Swain 
addressed the following letter to President Davis, 
which will be read with interest, as presenting some 
Tery remarkable statements in regard to the Uni- 
rersity and the village of Chapel Hill : 

^' University of North-Carolina, ) 
Chapel Hill, Oct. 15, 1863. ) 
" To Sis Excellency^ Jefferson Davis, President of 

the Confederate States: 

" Sir : The accompanying resolutions, adopted by 
the trustees of this institution at their meeting in 
Raleigh, on the eighth instant, make it my duty to 
open a correspondence with you on the subject to 
which they relate. 

" A simple statement of the facts, which seem to me 
to be pertinent, without any attempt to illustrate and 



258 th:G last ninety days of the war. 

enforce them by argument, will, I suppose, sufficiently 
accomplish the purposes of the trustees. 

"At the close of the collegiate year 1859-60, (June 
seventh, I860,) the whole number of students on our 
catalogue was four hundred and thirty. Of these, 
two hundred and forty-five were from North-Carolina, 
twenty-nine from Tennessee, twenty-eight from Loui- 
siana, twenty-eight from Mississippi, twenty-six from 
Alabama, twenty-four from South-Carolina, seventeen 
from Texas, fourteen from Georgia, five from Virginia, 
four from Florida, two from Arkansas, two from Ken- 
tucky, two from Missouri, two from California, one 
from Iowa, one from New-Mexico, one from Ohio. 
They were distributed in the four classes as follows : 
Seniors eighty-four. Juniors one hundred and two, 
Sophomores one hundred and twenty-five. Freshmen 
eighty. 

" Of the eight yoimg men Avho received the first 
distinction in the Senior class, four are in their graves, 
(soldiers' graves,) and a fifth a wounded prisoner. 
More than a seventh of these graduates are known to 
have fallen in battle. 

" The Freshmen class of eighty members pressed 
into the service with such impetuosity that but a sin- 
gle individual remained to graduate at the last com- 
mencement ; and he in the intervening time had en- 
tered the army, been discharged on account of im- 
paired health, and was 23ermitted by special favor to 
rejoin his class. 

" The Faculty at that time was composed of four 
teen members, no one of whom was liable to conscrip- 



THE LAST [NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 259 

tion. Five of the fourteen were permitted by the 
trustees to volunteer. One of these has recently re- 
turned from long imprisonment in Ohio, with a ruined 
constitution. A second is a wounded prisoner, now 
at Baltimore. A third fell at Getty sburgh. The re- 
maining two are in active field-service at j^resent. 

"The nine gentlemen who now constitute the corps 
of instructors are, with a single exception, clergymen, 
or laymen beyond the age of conscription. No one 
of them has a son of the requisite age who has not en- 
tered the service as a volunteer. Five of the eight 
sons of members of the faculty are now in active ser- 
vice ; one fell mortally wounded at Gettysburgh, an^ 
other at South-Mountain. 

" The village of Chapel Hill owes its existence to 
the University, and is of course materially affected by 
the prosperity or decline of the institution. The young 
men of the village responded to the call of the country 
with the same alacrity which characterized the college 
classes ; and fifteen of them — a larger proportion than 
is exhibited in any other town or village in the State — 
have already fallen in battle. The departed are more 
numerous than the survivors ; and the melancholy 
fact is prominent with respect to both the village and 
the University, that the most promising young men 
have been the earliest victims. 

^' Without entering into further details, permit me 
to assure you, as the result of extensive and careful 
observation and inquiry, that I know of no similar in- 
stitution or community in the Confederacy that has 
rendered greater services or endured greater losses 



260 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAK. 

and privations than tlie University of North-Carolina, 
and the village of Chapel Hill. 

" The number of students at present here is sixty- 
three ; of whom fifty-five are from North-Carolina, 
four from Virginia, two from- South-Carolina, and one 
from Alabama ; nine Seniors, thirteen Juniors, four- 
teen Sophomores, and twenty-seven Freshmen. 

" A rigid enforcement of the Conscription Act may 
take from us nine or ten young men with physical 
constitutions in general better suited to the quiet pur- 
suits of literature and science than to military service. 
They can make no appreciable addition to the strength 
of the army ; but their withdrawal may very seriously 
afiect our organization, and in its ultimate efiects com- 
pel us to close the doors of the oldest University at 
present accessible to the students of the Confederacy. 

" It can scarcely be necessary to intimate that with 
a slender endowment and a diminution of more than 
twenty thousand dollars in the annual receipts for tj^i- 
ition, it is at present very difficult and may soon be 
impossible to sustain the institution. The exeraj^tion 
of professors from the operation of the Conscript Act 
is a sufficient indication that the annihilation of the 
best established colleges in the country was not the 
purpose of our Congress ; and I can but hope with 
the eminent gentlemen who have made me their organ 
on this occasion, that it will never be permitted to' 
produce efiects which I am satisfied no one would 
more deeply deplore than yourself 

" I have the honor to be, with the highest consider- 
ation, your obedient servant, D. L. Swain." 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAK. 261 

The result of this application was that orders were 
issued from the Conscript Office to grant the exemp- 
tion requested. President Davis is reported to have 
said in the beginning of the war in refei'ence to the 
drafting of college boys, that it should not be done ; 
" that the seed-corn must not be ground uj)." 

But as the exigencies of the country became more 
and more pressing, the wisdom of this precept was 
lost sight of. In the spring of 1864, in reply to a 
second application in behalf of the two lower classes, 
Mr. Seddon returned the following opinion to the 
Conscript Bureau : 

" I can not see in the grounds presented such pecu- 
liar or exceptional circumstances as will justify depart- 
ure from the rules acted on in many similar instances. 
Youths under eighteen will be allow^ed to continue 
their studies. Those over, capable of military serv- 
ice, will best discharge their duty and find their high- 
est training in defending the country in the field. 
■ "March 10, 1864." 

In compliance with this opinion, the Conscript Act 
was finally enforced at the University ; the classes 
were still further reduced by the Avithdrawal of such 
as came within the requirements of the act, or who 
were determined to share at all hazards the fate of 
their comrades in the army. The University, how- 
ever, still struggled on ; and when General Sherman's 
forces entered the place, there were some ten or twelve 
boys still keeping up the .name of a college. The bell 
was rung by one of the professors, and morning and 



262 THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE "VVAE. 

evening prayers attended to during the stay of the 
United States forces. The students present, with two 
or three exceptions, were those whose homes were in 
the village*. The two or three who were from a dis- 
tance, left on the advent of the Federals, walking to 
their homes in neighboring counties, there being no 
other means of locomotion in those days. But one 
Senior, Mr. W. C. Prout, graduated at the ensuing 
commencement, having taken the whole course. There 
were three others who received diplomas at the same 
time. For the first time in thirty years, the President 
was absent from these exercises, having been sum- 
moned by President Johnson to Washington City, to 
confer with him and with other North-Carolina gen- 
tlemen on the condition of affairs in the State. Not a 
single visitor from abroad attended the commence- 
ment, with the exception of some thirty gentlemen 
dressed in hlue, who had been delegated to remain 
here and keep order. The residents of the village 
were the only audience to hear the valedictory pro- 
nounced by the sole remaining representative of his 
class. Where were the hundreds who had thronged 
these halls four years before ? Virginia, and Mary- 
land, and Pennsylvania, and Tennessee, and Georgia 
were heaving with their graves ! ■ In every State that 
had felt the tread of armies, and wherever the rough 
edge of the battle had joined, there had been found 
the foster-children of North-Carolina's University ;* 

* It is stated upon good authority, and is conBdeutly believed, tliat there was 
not a single regiment in the entire Confederate service iu which could not be 
found oue or more old students of Chapel Hill. 



THE LAST NIXETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 2G3 

and now, sitting discrowned and childless, she might 
well have taken up the old lamentations which come 
to us in these later days more and more audibly across 
the centuries, " Oh ! that my head were waters, and 
mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep 
day and night for the slain of the daughter of my 
people !" 

There is not a prettier village in the South than 
that which lies around the University, and has grown 
up with it and has been sustained and elevated by it. 
And not a village in the South gave more freely of its 
best blood in the war, not one suffered more severely 
in proportion to its population. Thirty-five of. our 
young men died in the service. Some of them left 
wives and little ones ; some were the only support 
and blessing of aged parents ; all were, with very few 
exceptions, the very flower of our families, and were 
representatives of every walk and condition of life. 
The first company that left the place in May, 1861, 
commanded by Captain R. J. Ashe, was attached to 
the famous First North-Carolina regiment, which so 
distinojuished itself at the memorable battle of Bethel, 
June tenth of that year. Upon the disbanding of this 
regiment, the members of the Orange Light Infantry 
attached themselves to other companies — for no fcAver 
than four were raised here and in the vicinity — and 
many of them were among those who dragged them- 
selves home on foot from Lee's last field. 

The decline of the University threw many of our 
citizens out of employment, and the privations en- 
dured here tell as sad a story as can be met with any- 



264 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE WAR. 

where. There was some alleviation of the general 
distress for those who had houses or furniture to rent; 
for every vacant room was crowded at one time by- 
refugee families from the eastern part of the State, 
from Norfolk, and latterly from Petersburg. And 
this was the case with everj^ town in the interior of 
the State. Some of these settled here permanently 
during the war, attracted, by the beauty and secluded 
quiet of the place, and by the libraries — best society 
of all ! Some of them merely alighted here in the first 
hurry of their flight, and afterward sought other 
homes, as birds flit uneasily from bough to bough 
w^hen driven from their nests. These families were 
generally representatives of the best and most highly 
cultivated of our Southern aristocracy. They fled 
hither stripped of all their earthly possessions, except 
a few of their negroes. Many came not only having 
left their beautiful homes in the hands of invaders, 
but with heads bowed down with mourning for gal- 
lant sons who had fallen in vain defense of those 
homes. Some of them, the elders among them, closed 
their w-earied. eyes here, and "were laid to rest among 
strangers, glad to die and exchange their uncertain 
citizenship in a torn and distracted country for that 
city which hath foundations. 

The benefits of the war in our State should not be 
overlooked in summing up even a slight record con. 
cerning it. It brought all classes nearer to each 
other. The rich and the poor met together. A com- 
mon cause became a common bond of sympathy and 
kind feeling. Charity was more freely dispensed, 



THE LAST NINETY DAYS OF THE WAE. 2C5 

pride of station was forgotten. The Supreme Court 
judges and the ex-governors, whose sons had marched 
away in the ranks side by side with those of the day- 
laborer, felt a closer tie henceforth to their neighbor. 
When a whole village poured in and around one 
church building to hear the ministers of every denom- 
ination pray the parting prayers and invoke the fare- 
well blessings in unison on the village boys, there was 
little room for sectarian feeling. " Christians of every 
name drew nearer to each other. People who wept, 
and prayed, and rejoiced together as we did for four 
years, learned to love each other more. The higher 
and nobler and more generous impulses of our nature 
were brought constantly into action, stimulated by the 
heroic endurance and splendid gallantry of our sol- 
diers, and the general enthusiasm which prevailed 
among us. Heaven fdl'bid we should forget the good 
which the war brought us, amid such incalculable 
evils ; and Heaven forbid we should ever forget its 
lessons — industry, economy, ingenuity, patience, faith, 
charity, and above all, and finally, humility, and a firm 
resolve henceforth to let well alone. 

That North-Carolina has within herself all the ele- 
ments of a larger life and hope, and a more difi"used 
prosperity than she has ever known, is not to be 
doubted by those who are acquainted with the wealth 
of her internal resources and the consummate hon- 
esty, industry, and resolution of her peo]3le. Time 
will heal these wounds yet raw and bleeding ; the 
tide of a ncAv and nobler life will yet fill her veins and 
throb in all her pulses ; and taught in the school of 



266 THE LAST NINETY DATS OF THE "WAE. 

adversity the noblest of all lessons, our people will 
rise from their present dejection when their civil 
rights have been restored them, and with renewed 
hope in God will go on to do their whole duty as 
heretofore. Silently they will help to clear the wreck 
and right the ship ; silently they will do their duty to 
the dead and to the living, and to those who shall 
come after them ; silently and with the modesty of all 
true heroism they will do great things, and leave it to 
others to publish them. Remarkable as North-Caro- 
linians have ever been for reticence and sobriety of 
speech and action, it is reserved for such epochs as 
those of May twentieth, 1776, and May twentieth,^ 
1861, and for such great conflicts as succeeded them, 
to show what a fire can leap forth from this grave, 
impassive people — what a flame is kindled in gene- 
rous sympathy, what ardor burns in defense of right 
and liberty. They are now to show the world what 
true and ennobling dignity may accompany defeat, 
surrender, and submission. 

I close these slight and inadequate sketches of a 
memorable time with the words of my first sentence. 
The history of the great war is yet to be written, and 
can scarcely be fairly and impartially written by this 
generation. But it is our imperative duty to our- 
selves and to our dead to begin at once to lay up the 
costly material for the great work. Every man should 
contribute freely according to his ability, gold and 
silver, precious stones, iron and wood ; and with this 
motive, I have ventured to present such an outline of 
events in the last ninety days as circumstances would 
permit me to gather. /^ 



APPENDIX 



I. 

" More than a semnth of the aggregate number of graduates 
are known to Jiave fallen in battle." 

This was written in October, 1863. Wlien the war was closed, 
the proportion was much greater. 

It is hardly consistent with the slight character of these 
sketches to enter deeply into questions of constitutional law, in- 
volving the rights of belligerents and insurgents in time of civil 
war. I had no intention of attempting more than a plain, un- 
varnished statement of facts ; with some hope, I confess, that a 
faithful narrative of the losses and the sufferings of the van- 
quished might do something at least toward arousing a generous 
remorse and regret in the breasts of the victors. This volume 
will produce an effect altogether contrary to what is intended if 
it serves only to prolong the remembrances which excite sec- 
tional animosity. 

The records of our literary institutions all over the South 
will be found especially valuable in making up the estimate of 
our losses on the battle-field ; for they will show unerringly that 
it was the best blood of the South that was poured out like water ; 
that her educated young men were the first to offer themselves in 
what they deemed a glorious cause, and were among the first to 
fall. And North-Carolina, in particular, may point with pride to 
her University for an example of patriotic devotion unsurpassed 
by any other institution in the South. 



208 APPENDIX. ] 

1 
I had hoped to be able to exhibit in this Appendix a collection 
of statistical details in connection with our University, of a deep 
and melancholy interest ; and have taken much pains and made 
numerous inquiries to ascertain what proportion of the living 
Alumni had participated in the contest, and what number had 
fallen in battle. It is, however, impossible to accomplish this 
design at present, and a complete record, if it can ever be ob- 
tained, must be reserved for future publication. I must content 
myself with a general view in relation to the actors of one par- 
ticular era; judging by which we may form some estimate of 
the whole number of those, who, having enjoyed the best advan- 
tages of education, and representing the best classes of society, 
counted not their lives dear in the service of their country. 

Let me here present one scene at the University as it occurred 
in the days when the Almighty was yet with us, when His 
candle shined upon our head, and our children were about us. 

The annual commencement of 1847 was rendered a literary 
festival of unusual interest, by the attendance of Presideijt 
Polk, and the Secretary of" the Navy, Judge Mason, both of 
whom were alumni of the University. 

The commencement of 1859 was rendered no less memorable 
by the visit of President Buchanan, and the Secretary of the 
Interior, Hon. Jacob Thompson, who was not only a graduate, 
but had been at one time a tutor in the Institution. How vivid 
is the recollection of those scenes in the minds of all who wit- 
nessed them ! How interesting and imposing the assemblage 
of all that could give dignity or influence to a State, or shed the 
light of beauty and grace on these venerable cloisters and 
schools of learning. In 1859, apprehensions of the permanency 
of the Union were beginning to be excited by symptoms of dis- 
satisfaction in the neighboring States. Secretary Thompson, in 
reply to the welcome addressed to him at his reception in front 
of Governor Swain's residence, referring to these ominous indi- 
cations, congratulated the assembly on the steadiness of attach- 
ment to the Union everywhere manifested by the people of his 
native State. He was applauded with a vehemence vi liicli gave 



APPENDIX. 269 

full assurance of tlie deep and universal loyalty of liis liearers. 
President Buchanan repeatedly expressed liis pleasure at these 
evidences of feeling which were reiterated whenever occasion 
offered. How little did he, how little did any one, foresee what 
changes a single year was to effect. On the evening preceding 
commencement-day, President Buchanan appeared upon the 
rostrum and performed an interesting part in the exercises. At 
the request of the Rev. Dr. Wheat, the then Professor of Rhe- 
toric, he delivered the prize awarded to the best English writer 
in the Sophomore class, Eldridge E. Wright, of Memphis, Tenn., 
who afterward graduated with the highest distinction, and the 
most flattering hopes and promises of future usefulness. He 
fell, a captain of artillery, in defense of his battery at the battle 
of Murfreesboro. The two eldest sons of Dr. Wheat both fell in 
battle — one at Shiloh and the other in Virginia. Of the six col- 
lege tutors then present but one survives. Of the crowd of trus- 
tees and distinguished North-Carolinians who surrounded that 
rostrum, time would fail me to tell of the prostrate hopes and 
darkened hearths ; but in brief, I may say, that of the four hun- 
dred and thirty young men then listening with intense eagerness 
and prolonged applause to words of wisdom and affection from 
their chie/ magistrate, more than a fifth, in less than five years, 
fell in fratricidal strife on every battle-field from Pennsylva- 
nia to Texas. Could the curtain that in mercy vailed the future, 
have been that day withdrawn, what would have been the emo- 
tions of the audience ? Could they have seen one hundred of 
those four hundred and thirty gay and gallant boys lying in all 
the gha^ly and bloody forms of death on the battle-field ; a like 
proportion with amputated limbs, or permanently impaired con- 
stitutions ; and all, with few exceptions, seamed with honorable 
Bears, would they not have recoiled horror-stricken from such a 
revelation of war as it really is ? What would have been the 
effect on that veteran statesman could he have seen all this — 
seen his friend and associate in the councils of the nation an 
exile, wandering in foreign lands, and all the Avidespread havoc, 
ruin, and woo of a four years' merciless war darkly curtaining 



270 APPENDIX. 

tlie broad and smiling land ? In tlie providence of God lie was 
childless. How many fathers of tliat goodly throng have gone 
down to the grave sorrowing — for sorrow slays as well as the 
sword ; how many mothers, sisters, and wives refuse to be com- 
forted, and long for the grave, and are glad when they find it ! 

I have selected the catalogue of 1859-60 referred to in the 
letter from Governor Swain to President Davis, as best calcu- 
lated to show the results of the fearful change produced among us 
in the brief interval preceding the civil Avar, 

The Senior class of 18G0 consisted of eighty-four members. 
The subjoined table wiU show that every one of these able to 
bear arms, with perhaps a single exception, entered the service, 
and that more than a fourth of the entire number now fill sol- 
diers' graves. The proportion of the wounded to the killed is 
ordinarily estimated as not smaller than three to one ; and judg- 
ing by this rule, it appears and is believed to be the fact, that 
very few of the whole class remained unscathed. Of the 
younger classes, my information is not sufficiently complete to 
justify the giving a list ; but enough is ascertained to make it 
certain that the sacrifice of life among them was in very nearly 
the same proportion as among the Seniors. As a matter of un- 
dying interest to the people of my own State, and significant 
enough to those of others, I present this record of the sons of 
her University. 

Adams, Robert B. In service from South-Carolina. 

Alexander, Sydenham B., Capt. 42d N. C. Regt. 

Anderson, Lawrence M., Lieut. Killed at Shiloh. 

Askew, George W., Capt. Miss. Regt. 

Attmore, Isaac T. Killed in Virginia. 

Baird, William W., Lieut. N. C. Regt. 

Barbee, Algernon S., Lieut. Com. Dept. Army of the West. 

Barrett, Alexander, Lieut. 49th N. C. Regt. 

Battle, Junius C. • Killed at Sharp's Mountain. 

Bond, Lewis, Chief Ord. to Gen. Jackson. 

Borden, William H., Lieut. 50th N. C. Regt. 

Bowie, John R., Sergt. Signal Corps, Louisiania. • 



APPENDIX. 271 

Brickell, Sterling H., Capt. 12t]i N. C. Regt. Resigned from 

wounds. 
Brooks, William M., 3d N. C. Cav. 
Bruce, Charles, Jr. Killed at Richmond. 
Bryan, George P., Capt. 2d N. C. Regt. Killed. 
Bullock, Richard A., Com. Sergt. 12th N. C. Regt. 
Butler, Pierce M., 1st Lieut. 2d S. C. Cav. 
Cole, Alexander T., Capt. 23d N. C. Regt. 
Coleman, Daniel R., 20th N. C. Regt. 
Cooper, Robert E., Chaplain Cobb's Legion. 
Cooper, Thomas W., 1st Lieut. 11th N. C. Regt. Killed at Get- 

tysburgh. 
Daniel, S. Venable, 1st Lieut. 17th N. C. Regt. 
Davis, Samuel C, Lieut. 4th N. C. Regt. 
Davis, Thomas W., Lieut. 8th N. C. Regt 
Drake, Edwin L., Col. Tenn. Regt. Cav. 
Fain, John H. D., Capt. 33d N. C. Regt. Killed at Petersburg, 3d 

April, 1865. 
Ferrand, Horace, Louisiana Regt. 
Fogle, James 0. A., Medical Dept. Richmond. 
Franklin, Samuel R. Died in service. 
Garrett, Woodston L., Lieut. 8th Ala. Cav. 
Gay, Charles E., Lieut. Miss. Artillery. 
Graham, James A., Capt. 27th N. C. Regt. 
Haigh, Charles, Sergt.-Major 5th N. C. Cav. 
Hale, Edward J., Jr., Capt. A. A. G. to Gen. Lane. 
Hardin, Edward J., Lieut, and Adjt. Conscript Bureau. 
Hays, Robert B., Forrest's Cavalry. 
Headen, William J., Lieut. 26th N. C. Regt. Killed. 
Henry, William W., Capt. Artillery, Army of the West. 
Hightower, Samuel A., 26th Louisiana Regt. 
Holliday, Thomas C, Capt. A. A. G. to Gen. Davis. Killed, 
Houston, R. Bruce B., Lieut. 52d N. C. Regt. 
Jones, H. Francis, Lieut. A. D. C. to Gen. Young. Killed. 
Jones, Walter J., Heavy Artillery. Afterward 40th N. C. Regt. 
Kelly, James, Presbyterian clergyman. 



272 APPENDIX. 

Kelly, Jolin B., 26tli N. C. Regt. 
King, William J., Medical Dept. Riclimond. 
.Lutteiioli, Jarvis B., Lieut. 5Gtli N. C. Regt. Killed at Gum 

Swamp. 
Martin, Eugene S., Lieut. 1st Battery Heavy Artillery. 
Martin, George S., Capt. Tenn. Art'y. Killed by bushwhackers. 
McCallum, James B., Lieut. 51st N. C. Regt. Killed at Bermuda 

Hundreds. 
McClelland, James C. Died in 1861, in Arkansas. 
McKethan, Edwin T., Lieut. 51st N. C. Regt. 
McKimmon, Arthur N., Q. M. Dept. Raleigh. 
McKimmon, James, Jr., Lieut. Manly's Battery. 
Mebane, Cornelius, Adjt. 6th N. C. Regt. 
Mebane, John W. Capt. Tenn. Artillery. Killed at KenesaTV 

Mountain. 
Micou, Augustm, Lieut, and A. A. G. Drew's Battalion. 
Minims, Thomas S., Western Army. 
Nicholson, WilUam T., Capt. 37th N. C. Regt. Killed. 
Pearce, Oliver W., 3d Regt. N. C. Cav. 
Pittman, Reddin G., 1st Lieut. Eng. Dep. 
Pool, Charles C. 

Quarles, George McD. Died in service. 
Ryal, Tims, Louisiana Regt. 

Royster, Iowa, Lieut. 37th N. C. Regt. Killed at Gettysburgli 
Sanders, Edward B., Sergt.-Major 35th N. C. Regt. 
Saimders, Jos. H., Lieut.-Col. 33d N. C. Regt. 
Scales, Erasmus D., Capt. and Com. Sub. 2d N. C. Cav 
Smith, Farquhard, Jr., 3d N. C. Cav. 
Smith, Norfleet, 1st Lieut. 3d N. C. Cav. 
Smith, Thomas L. Killed at Vicksburgh. 
Sterling, Edward G. Died in service. 
Strong, Hugh. In South-Carolina service. 
Sykes, Richard L. In Mississippi service. 
Taylor, George W., Ass't. Surgeon, 26th La. 
Thompson, Samuel M., Colonel Tenn. Regt. 
Thorp, John H., Capt. 47th N. C. Regt. 



APPENDIX. 273 

Vaughau, Vernon H. In Alabama service 

Wallace, James A., 44tli N. C. Regt. 

Wier, Samuel P., Lieut. 4Gtli N. C. Regt. Killed at Fredericks. 

burgh. 
Whitfield, Cicero, Sergt. o3d N. C. Regt. 
Wilson, George L. Died. 
Wooster, William A., Capt. 1st N. C. Regt. KiUed at Richmond. 

Of field-officers in the Confederate service, at least thirteen il- 
lustrious names are among the Alumni of the University, namely : 
Lieut.-General Leonidas Polk, 
Brig.-Generals Geo. B. Anderson, 

Rufus Barringer, • 

L. O'B. Branch, 

Thomas L. Clingman, 

Robert D. Johnston, 

Gaston Lewis, 

James Johnston Pettigrew, 

Matt. W. Ransom, 

Ashley W. Spaight ; and 
Adjutant-Generals 

R. C. Gatliu, 

John F. Hoke. 

Generals Polk, Anderson, Branch, and Pettigrew were killed, 
and all the others (with the exception of the two bureau 
officers) severely wounded, and most of them more than once. 

I regret that my information in regard to many other gallant 
field-officers is at present too imperfect to justify the enmnera- 
tion ; much less am I able to give a correct list of subaltern offi- 
cers, and the unrecorded dead. It will be a labor of love to con- 
tinue my inquiries, in the hope of being able at some future day 
to present a suitable memorial of all our loved and lost. 

Beloved till Time can charm no more, 
And mourned till Pity's self be dead. 

In looking ovei the list of even so few as are recorded above. 



274 APPENDIX. 

one is struck with tlie number of those killed, of whom interest- 
ing and touching obituary memorials might be written. Nearly 
all of them were men of rank. One of the most widely read 
and admired and useful religious biographies of the day has 
been Miss Marsh's Life of Captain Hedley Vicars of the English 
Crimean Army. We had many a Captain Vicars in our South- 
ern Confederate army, whose life, if written as well, would be 
quite as striking, quite as valuable — many pure and noble Christ- 
ian young men, the beauty of whose daily lives still sheds a 
glow around their memories. It w^as in fact a common remark, 
during the war, that it was the best who fell. I am sure that 
North-C-arolinians, at least, will jiot be displeased with particular 
mention of a few of their dead in this place. 

Of the six tutors connected with the University at the opening 
of the war, all of whom volunteered at once, five — namely, Cap- 
tains Anderson, Bryan, Johnson, Morrow, and Lieutenant Royster 
— fell on the battle-field, and they were all, without one exception, 
young men of more than ordinary promise. 

Captain Anderson, of Wilmington, was a brother of General 
George B. Anderson. He graduated with the highest distinc- 
tion in the year 1858. His class consisted of ninety-four members, 
nearly all of whom it is believed entered the army. Two of the 
seven who shared the first distinction with him — one subsequently 
tutor in the University, W. C. Dowd, the other Captain W. C. 
Lord, of Salisbury — are in their graves. 

Captain William Adams, of Greensboro, whose name occurs 
first on the roll of his classmates, was killed at Sharpsburgh. 
Captain Hugh T. Brown, (half-brother to General Gordon,) fell 
■at Springfield ; and Lieutenant Thomas Cowan, at Sharpsburgh. 
Among those wdio have survived the perils of the battle-field 
and the hospital, are Lieutenant-Colonels H. C. Jones, A. C. Mc- 
Allister, and J, T. Morehead, Colonels John A. Gilmer and L. M. 
McAfee, and General Robert D. Johnston. 

Captain Anderson was a candidate for orders in the Episcopal 
|Church, but believed it his duty to contribute his share to the 
vindication of the rights of his c^ountry. He served with cou- 



APPENDIX. 275 

tinuaUy increasing reputation, and fell in tlie battle of the WH- 
derness Creek. 

Captain George Pettigrew Bryan, of Ruleigli, was another most 
rare spirit. Belonging to the class of 1860, enumerated above, he 
was the youngest of eight who received the first distinction. Dur- 
ing his college life, and through9ut the whole of his brief but bril- 
liant career, he was as conspicuous for his fidelity to duty as for 
his intellectual attainments. He, too, was to have consecrated his 
rare gifts to the ministry of the Church. He fell, while leading 
a charge on the enemy's works, ten miles east of Richmond- 
Mortally wounded in the breast, he said, " Boys, I'm killed, but I 
wish I could live to see you ^take those works." In a few mo- 
ments the works were carried and the enemy routed. In half an 
hour after, he died peacefully and calmly : his promotion to 
lieutenant-colonel arriving just after his death. 

Captain George B. Johnson, of Edenton, a graduate of 1859, 
bearing away the highelt honors, died in Chapel Hill of a decline 
brought on by the hardships of prison life at Sandusky, Ohio. 
One of his professors wrote of him : " His powers of mind were 
unusual, his energy of character very marked, his tastes all 
scholarly, and his attainments extensive and accurate. Always 
pure and upright and truthful and unselfish. Never was a whis- 
per of reproach or censure uttered against him." 

Lieutenant I. Royster, of Raleigh, was one of the graduates of 
this University who would have shed a lustre on its name had he 
lived. One of the eight of 1860 who received the first distinction, 
he was in many respects a remarkable genius — intellectually 
one of the most gifted young men who ever left these halls. He 
fell at Gettysburgh, advancing to the charge considerably in front 
of his company and singing "Dixie" as he met his instant death. 

Captain E. Graham Morrow, of Chapel Hill, fell at Gettysburgh. 
Another noble, modest, gallant, and true young man. He was a 
Bon of North-Carolina in a particular sense, for he came of fa- 
thers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers and ancestors even more 
remote who had been an honor to the same soil before him. On 
these six slight memorials there is yet a crown to be placed. 



276 APPENDIX. 

These young men were all Christians. That light above any 
that ever shone by sea or shore falls upon their graves. 

In the list of the Seniors of 1860 given above, of the eight 
who received the first honors of the University, but three sur- 
vive ; of the twenty-seven distinguished (more than atliird of the 
Avliole number) ton are no more. Of the twenty-four dead, who 
shall estimate the loss to their country, and to their families of 
even these ? Of one of the fairest and best. Captain John Fain, of 
Warren, who was the only child of his mother, and she a wid- 
ow ; killed after passing safely through four years of peril and 
suffering, and falling in the last day of the last fight before Pe- 
tersburg, April 2d, 18G5. Another of the first eight was Junius C. 
Battle, of Chapel Hill, fourth son' of the Law Professor, Judge 
Battle. Having suffered amputation of the left leg, after the 
battle of South-Mountain, he occupied such of the few remain- 
ing hours of his life as he could redeem from his own sufferings, 
in reading to the crowd of Confederatf and Federal wounded 
around him. We can well imagine, wrote a friend, how elo- 
quent such reading was to such an audience. The reader's own 
eye was fast glazing, and the pains of death among strangers 
w^ere 'a\)Oi\ him, but he rallied the remnants of liis vision and 
self-control, and spent them in directing the fading eyes aroimd 
him to that wicket-gate and shining light. Surely it was a 
cup of cold water given in the name of his Master, and even 
now is abundantly rewarded. 

Of William A. Wooster of Wilmington, and of George L. 
Wilson of New-Berne, of whom, standing before hini to say fare- 
well. Gov. Swain said that he never had under his care, never 
had known two young men of higher character, purer faith, or 
more gifted intellect than these two beloved pupils. 

I am tempted to go on with this list, but am reminded that I 
shall exceed my limits. Some abler hand, I trust, will some day 
gather up for preservation all these records of our noble boys ; 
worthy, all of them, of that glorious epitaph once to be seen at 
Thermopyloe : " Tell it in North-Carolina, that we lie here in 
obedience to HER laws." 



APPENDIX. 211 

Of our Generals much miglit be said that would be of deep 
and permanent interest. In General Pettigrew, North-Carolina 
was universally and justly considered to have lost one of the 
most remarkable men that this continent has ever produced. He 
graduated in 1847, when he and General Ransom received the 
first distinction in their clas9. The latter delivered the Saluta- 
tory of his class to President Polk, and fortunately survives tl^e 
perils of many a battle-field still further to honor and receive 
honor from his native State. Of General Pettigrew I append 
a biographical sketch, which originally appeared in the Fai/- 
etteville Observer, by a hand fully competent to do him justice, 
and which presents him not overdrawn nor too highly colored. 
Of none of the thousands of the flower of this Southern land 
who fell in her defense can it be said more justly than of 
James Johnston Pettigrew : 

" Felix non solum claritate vitce, sed etiam opportunitatS 
mortis." * 

* Fortunate not only in the renown of his life, but also in the opportunity of 
his death. 



278 APPENDIX. 



II. 

GEN. JAMES JOHNSTON PETTIGREW. 



From The Fayetteville Observer. 

James JonxsToisr Pettigrew, late a Brigadier in tlie army 
of the Confederate States, was born at Lake Scuppernong, in 
Tyrrell county, North-Carolina, upon the 4th day of July, 1828. 
His family is originally of French extraction. At an early peri- 
od, however, one branch of it emigrated to Scotland, where it may 
be traced holding lands near Glasgow about the year 1492. Af- 
terward a portion of it removed to the northern part of Ireland. 
From this place James Pettigrew, the great-grandfather of the 
subject of this notice, about the year 1732, came into Pennsyl- 
vania, and, some twenty years afterward, into North-Carolina. 
About 1770, this gentleman removed to South-Carolina, leav- 
ing here, however, his son Charles, who was a resident succes- 
sively of the counties of Granville, Chowan, and Tyrrell. Charles 
Pettigrew was subsequently the first Bishop-elect of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church in this diocese. He died in 1807, and his 
memory survives, fragrant with piety, charity, and an extended 
usefulness. His son Ebenezer succeeded to his estates and rep- 
utation. Devoting his life to the successful drainage and cultiva- 
tion of the fertile lands which he owned, and to the government 
of the large family of which he was the head, Mr. Pettigrew 
resisted every solicitation presented by his neighbors for the 
employment of his talents in public service. Upon one occasion 
alone was his reluctance overcome. In 1835, he was chosen by a 



APPENDIX. 2^9 

very flattering vote to represent liis District in the Congress of 
tlie United States. At tliat election lie received the rare compli- 
ment of an almost unanimous vote from his fellow-citizens of 
Tyrrell, failing to obtain but three votes out of more than seven 
hundred. He could not be prevailed upon to be a candidate at 
a second election. Mr. Pettigrew married Miss Shepard, a 
daughter of the distinguished family of that name seated at 
New-Berne. She died in July 1830, when her son James Johnston 
was but two years of age. Ebenezer Pettigrew lived until 
July, 1848, having witnessed with great sensibility the very bril- 
liant opening of his son's career among the cotemporary youth 
of the land. 

After his mother's death the child was taken to the home of 
his grandmother at New-Berne, and there remained until he was 
carried into Orange county, to pursue his education. Owing to 
an unfortunate exposure whilst an infant, young Pettigrew w&a 
a delicate boy, but by diligent and systematic exercise he grad- 
ually inured his constitution to endure without harm extraordi- 
nary fatigue and the extremes of weather. He was a member 
of various schools at Hillsboro from the year 1836, enjoying the 
advantages of instructiou by Mr. Bingham for about four years 
previously to his becoming a student at the University. During 
this period the state of his health required Wh. to be often at 
home for several months together. He was a member of the 
University of North-Carolina during the full term of four years, 
graduating there at the head of his class in June, 1847. From 
early childhood young Pettigrew had been noted as a boy of ex- 
traordinary intellect. At all the schools he was easily first in 
every class and in every department of study. He seemed to mas- 
ter his text-books by intuition. They formed the smallest por- 
tion of his studies, for his eager appetite for learning ranged 
widely over su^cts collateral to his immediate tasks. Nor did 
they always stop here. His father was amused and gratified 
upon one occasion to observe the extent to which he had prof- 
ited by his excursions among the medical books of an eminent 
physician at Hillsboro, of whose family he was an inmate at the 



280 APPENDIX. 

age of fourteen. In the class-room at tlie University lie ap. 
peared in reciting rather to have descended to the level of the 
lesson, than to have risen up to it. Student as he was, 
and somewhat reserved in demeanor, he was nevertheless very 
popular with his fellows, and the object of their enthusiastic ad- 
miration. Anecdotes were abundant as to the marvelous range 
of his acquirements, and the generosity and patience with which 
he contributed from his stores even to the dullest applicant for 
aid. Nor was it only in letters that he was chief. A fencing-mas- 
ter, who happened to have a class among the collegians, bore 
quite as decided testimony to his merits as he had obtained from 
the various chairs of the faculty. 

The commencement at which he graduated was distinguished 
by the attendance of President Polk, Mr. Secretary Mason, and 
Lieutenant Maury of the National Observatory. Impressed by 
the homage universally paid to his merits, as well as by the high 
character of his graduating oration, these gentlemen proposed 
to him to become an assistant in the Observatory at Washing- 
ton City. After spending some weeks in recreation, Mr. Petti- 
grew reported to Lieutenant Maury, and remained with him 
for some six or eight months. In the occupations of this ofnco 
he fully maintainai his earlier promise ; but soon relinquished 
the position, inasmuch as the exposure and labor incident to it 
were injuriously affecting his health. 

After an interval of travel in the Northern States, Mr. Petti- 
grew, in the fall of 1848, became a student of law in the oflB.ce 
of James Mason Campbell, Esq., of Baltimore, where he re- 
mained for several months. At the close of this period, by the 
solicitation of his kinsman, the late James L. Petigru of Charles- 
ton, S. C, he entered his oflBce with the design of being subse- 
quently associated with him in the practice of his profession. 
Upon obtaining license, Mr. Pettigrew, by tbeu advice of his 
kinsman just mentioned, proceeded to Berlin and other univer- 
sities in Germany in order to perfect himself in the civil law. 
He remained in Europe for nearly three years. Two years of 
this time he devoted to study, the remainder he spent in travel- 



APPENDIX. 281 

ing upon the Continent, aiicl in Great Britain and IrelarLcl. He 
availed himself of this opportunity of becoming acquainted with 
modern European languages so far as to be able to speak with 
ease in those of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. During this 
tour he contracted a great partiality for the Spanish character 
and history, having had considerable opportunity for studying 
the former not only as a private gentleman, but also as Secreta- 
ry of Legation for a short while to Colonel Barringer, then Min- 
ister of the United States near the Court of Spain. It may be 
proper to add here, that among the unaccomplished designs of 
Mr. Pettigrew, to which he had given some labor, was that of 
following Prescott in further narratives of the connection of 
Spain with America, and as a preliminary to this he had formed 
a collection of works in Arabic, and had made himself acquaint- 
ed with that language. 

Mr. Pettigrew returned to Charleston in November, 1852, and 
entered upon the practice of law in connection with his honored 
and accomplished relative, " He profited so well by his stucues 
in Europe and by his subsequent investigations, that in the 
opinion of his partner, who was well qualified to judge, he be- 
came a master of the civil law not inferior in acquisition and 
in grasp of principle to any in the United States. His success 
at the bar was brilliant. In 1856, he was chosen one of the rep- 
resentatives of the city in the Legislature, holding his seat un- 
der that election for the two sessions of December, 1856, and 
December, 1857. He rose to great distinction in that body. His 
report against the reopening of the Slave Trade, and his speech 
upon the organization of the Supreme Court, gave him reputa- 
tion beyond the bounds of the State, He failed to be reelected 
in 1858. 

Mr. Pettigrew persistently refused to receive any portion of 
the income of the partnership of w^hich he was a member. In- 
dependent in property, and simple in his habits of personal ex- 
penditure, he displayed no desire to accumulate money. Noble 
in every trait of character, he held the contents of his purse 
subject to every draft that merit might present. 



282 APPEXDIX. 

F( r some years previous to the ruptui'e between tlie North 
and tlie Soulh, Mr. Pettigrew had anticipated its occurrence, 
and believing" it to be his duty to be prepared to give his best 
assistance to the South in such event, had turned his attention 
to military studies. Like many other rare geniuses, he had al- 
ways a partiality for mathematics, and so very naturally devoted 
much time to that branch of this science which deals with war. 
Even as far back as 1850 he had been desirous of becoming an 
officer in the Prussian army ; and negotiations for that end set 
upon foot by military friends whom he had made at Berlin, 
failed only because he was a republican. Afterward he became 
Aid to Governor Alston of South-Carolina, and more recently to 
Governor Pickens. Upon the breaking out of the war between 
Sardinia and Austria, Colonel Pettigrew at once arranged his pri- 
vate business and hastened to obtain position in the army under 
General Marmora. His application to Count Cavour was favor- 
ably received, but after consideration his offer was declined on 
the ground that the event of the battle of Solferino had ren- 
dered further fighting improbable. He was greatly disappoint- 
ed, as his reception had inspired him with hopes of seeing 
active service in the Sardinian army with rank at least as high 
as that of a colonel. Availing himself, however, of his unex- 
pected leisure, he revisited Spain, and after a stay of a few 
months returned to South-Carolina. The fruits of this second 
visit were collected by him into a volume entitled Spain and 
the Spaniards, which he printed for the inspection of his 
friends in 1860, It will be found to be a thoughtful, spirited, 
and agreeable record of his impressions of that romantic land. 

At the opening of the present war. Colonel Pettigrew, as Aid to 
Governor Pickens, took a prominent part in the operations of 
Charleston. He was at that time also colonel of a rifle regiment 
in which he was much interested, and which became conspicuous 
amongst the military organizations around Charleston in the 
winter of 1860-18G1. As commander of this body he received 
the surrender of Castle Pinckney, and subsequently held himself 
in readiness to storm Fort Sumter, in case it had not sarren- 



APPENDIX. 283 

dered after bombardment. Later in the spring, having failed 
to procure the incorporation of his regiment into the army of 
the Confederate States, and believing there was little chance of 
seeing active service in Sonth-Carolina, he transferred himself 
as a private into Hampton's Legion, and early in the summer 
accompanied that corps into Virginia. A few days afterward 
he was recalled to the service of his native State by an unsolic- 
ited election as Colonel of the 12th Regiment of North-Caroliua 
Volunteers, now the 22d Regiment of North-Carolina Troops. 
It had been Colonel Pettigrew's earnest wish to become connected 
with the North-Carolina army, and so he at once accepted the 
honorable position, and repaired to Raleigh where his regiment 
was stationed in its camp of instruction. He devoted his atten- 
tion to its discipline with great assiduity, and in the early days of 
August was ordered into Virginia. The fall and winter of 1861 
were spent by him near Evansport, upon the Potomac. He gave 
his whole time and attention to the perfecting of his regiment, 
in the duties of soldiers. He fully shared in every hardship that 
was incident to their situation. In this new position Colonel Pet- 
tigrew became conspicuous for another characteristic necessary 
to eminent success in every department, but especially in that of 
military life. The men imder his command became devotedly 
attached to him. Their enthusiasm knew no bounds. Their 
confidence in his administration of the police of the camp was 
perfect, and their assurance of his gallantry and skill unqualified. 
He soon felt that he might rely upon his brave men for all that 
was possible to soldiers, and his attachment to the regiment 
became marked. Being oflfered promotion to the rank of briga- 
dier, he declined it on the ground that it would separate him from 
his regiment. Some time later in the spring of 1862, an arra*ige- 
ment was made by which the 12th Regiment was included in 
the brigade that Avas tendered to him, and he no longer felt any 
difficidty in accepting the promotion. 

General Pettigrew shared in the march under General John- 
ston into the Peninsula, and afterward in the retreat upon Rich- 
mond. On the 1st day of June, 1862, in the battle of S'even Pines, 



284 APPENDIX. 

he was severely wounded by a ball wlncli passed transversely 
along the front of his throat and so into the shoulder, cutting the 
nerves and muscles which strengthen the right arm. This oc- 
curred in a charge which he had headed with great gallantry. 
He was left upon the field for dead, and recovered his consciousness 
only to find himself in the hands of the enemy. Some weeks 
later his exchange was effected, and, being still an invalid, he was 
placed in command at Petersburg. The exigencies of the service 
having required his regiment to be transferred to another brigade, 
he found, upon his return, that it had been placed under the gal. 
lant— and now, alas ! lamented — General Pender. By degrees a 
new brigade assembled around General Pettigrew, and such was 
liis pains in its instruction, and such the desire among the North- 
Carolina soldiers to make part of his command, that by the close 
of the year he was at the head of a brigade which, in point of qual- 
ity, numbers, and soldierly bearing, was equal to any in the army. 
He commanded this brigade in repelling the Federal raid into 
iMartin county, late in the fall of 18G2, and again in General Fos- 
ter's expedition against Goldsboro, in December, 18G2, and al- 
though the quick dexterity of the enemy in falling back did 
upon neither occasion afford him and his associates an opportu. 
nity of trying conclusions with them, yet upon both occasions 
the magnificent appearance of Pettigrew's Brigade tended 
greatly to revive the spirit of a community recently overrun by 
the enemy. He was also with General D. H. Hill during the 
spring of this year, in his attempt upon Washington in this 
State ; and in the very brilliant affair at Blount's Creek gave the 
public a taste of what might be expected from his abilities when 
untrammeled by the orders of a superior. 

At the time of General Stoneman's raid on the north of Rich- 
mond, General Pettigrew was ordered to the protection of that 
city, and shortly afterward took position at Hanover Junction, 
tlis brigade subsequently made part of the Army of Northern Vir- 
ginia, and accompanied General Lee into Pennpylvania. At the 
battle of Gettysburgh he was in command of General Heth's di- 
vision, and won many laurels. His division was greatly cut up. 



APPENDIX. 285 

The loss of his brigade in killed and wounded was so lieavy as 
almost to destroy its organization. He liimself was wounded by a 
ball whicli broke one of the bones of his hand. He regarded it so 
Little as not to leave the field. Moving afterward with General 
Lee to Hagerstown and the Potomac, it devolved upon General 
Pettigrew, on the night of the 13th and the morning of the 14th 
of July, to assist in guarding the passage of that part of the 
army which recrossed at Falling Water. About nine o'clock in 
the morning of the latter day, having been in the saddle all night. 
General Pettigrew and other officers had thrown themselves 
upon the ground for a few moments' rest, when a party of Fed- 
eral cavalry rode into their midst. In the melee which ensued 
General Pettigrew was shot — the ball taking efiect in the abdo- 
men and passing through his body. When the enemy had been 
repulsed, he was taken up by his sorrowing soldiers and carried 
across the river some seven miles into Virginia, along the track 
of the army. Upon the next day he was carried some fifteen 
miles further, to the house of Mr. Boyd at Bunker Hill, where 
he received every attention of which his situation allowed. 
Upon General Lee's expressing great sorrow for the calamity, he 
said that his fate was no other than one might reasonably an- 
ticipate upon entering the army, and that he was perfectly will- 
ing to die for his country. To the Rev. Mr. Wilmer he avowed 
a firm persuasion of the truths of the Christian religion, and 
said that in accordance with his belief he had some years before 
made preparations for death, adding, that otherwise he would 
not have entered the army. He lingered until the 17th, and then 
at twenty- five minutes after sixin the morning, died, quietly and 
without pain. The expression of sympathy for his sad fate was 
universal. Private soldiers from other commands and distant 
States, vied with his own in repeated inquiries after his condi- 
tion. Upon its way to Raleigh his body was received by the 
authorities and by the citizens everywhere with all possible 
respect and attention. On the morning of Friday, the 24th of 
July, the coffin, wrapped in the fiag of the country, and adorned 
with wreaths of flowers and other ■'ributes of feminine taste and 



286 APPENDIX. 

tenderness, lay in tlie rotunda of the Capitol, T^'here. within the ' 
year, had preceded him his compatriots Branch and Anderson. 
Later in the day the State received his loved and honored re- 
mains into her bosom. * 

It was a matter of great gratification to North-Carolina when 
this son, after an absence of a few years, gladly returned to her 
service. She views his career in arms with a j ust pride. She will 
ever reckon him among the most precious of her jewels ; and will 
hold him forth as the fittest of all exemplars to the coming gen- 
erations of her young heroes. Chief among his triumphs will 
it be reckoned that in the midst of his elevation and of the high 
hopes which possessed his soul, he so demeaned himself as to 
secure a jDlace, hallowed by grief, in many an humble heart 
throughout North-Carolina. His name is to be pronounced rev- 
erently and with tears by the winter fireside of many a hut ; 
and curious childhood will beg to have often repeated the rude 
stories in which soldiers shall celebrate his generosity, his im- 
partiality, his courtesy, and his daring. It is true that many 
eyes which flashed with enthusiasm as their favorite urged his 
gray horse into the thick of the battle, are forever dull upon the 
fatal hills of Pennsylvania ; but this will render his memory only 
the more dear to the survivors ; what of his fame was not theirs 
originally, they will claim to have inherited from the dead 
around Gettysburgh. 

If this story has been properly told, little remains to be said 
by way of comment. A young man of very rare accomplish- 
ments and energy, fitted equally for the cloister of the scholai 
and for the field of battle, has been snatched from our midst. 
Admirably qualified to be of assistance to the country as a sol- 
dier or as a statesman. General Pettigrew has been suddenly re- 
moved at the very commencement, as it were, of his career. 

Ostendent terris hiinc tantum fata, neque ultra 
Esse sinent. 



Although what he has achieved is sufficient for fame, that 
which impresses the observer most forcibly is that such vast 



APPENDIX. 287 

preparation should, in the course of Proviaence, be defeated of 
an opportunity for display at all commensurate with what seemed 
its reasonable requiroKients. Under the circumstances his death 
looks like a prodigious waste of material. It adds a striking il- 
lustration to that class of subjects which has always been popu- 
lar in poetry, and in morals whether heathen or Christian. It 
appears very clearly that the Ruler of all things is under no ne- 
cessity to employ rare talents and acquirements in the course of 
His awful administration, but in the crisis of great affairs can 
lay aside a Pettigrew with as little concern as any other instru- 
ment, even the meanest. 

Upon some fitting occasion no doubt his friends will see that 
the public is furnished with a more suitable and detailed account 
of the preparation he had made to do high service to his gener- 
ation. It will then be better known that no vulgar career of 
ambition, and no ordinary benefit to his country, had presented 
itself to him as worthy of the aims and endowments of James 
Johnston Pettigrew. 



"THE BURIAL OF LATANE." 

A SPLENDID PICTURE, 

Painted hy W, ID, Washington^ Bsq.^ 

OF VIRGINIA, AND 

PHOTOGRAPHED BY FONTAYNE, 

OF NEW-YORK. 

This elegant production of art has been greatly admired and sought 
after. We propose to give all our people, North and South, an op- 
portunity to possess it. The photograph is fourteen by eighteen 
inches when mounted. 

The Press has pronounced the highest praise upon this beautiful 
picture. Dr. Deems, in The Watchman, thus describes his first sight 
of the picture : 

" It represented an open grave, and near it a bier on which lay a 
3orpse of a Confederate soldier, as was manifest from the uniform 
which was thrown over the concealed figure. Around this bier and 
this grave stood a group of persons, the most conspicuous being a 
lady, at the head of the grave, in simple matronly attire, with a most 
serene and noble face uplifted toward the sky, while she held an open 
volume of the Common Prayer. To her left were several ladies and 
very young girls, all with most tender expressions of sadness and 
grief upon their fair faces. To her right was a group of servants, 
women and men, one of the latter of whom rested upon the spade 
with which he had been digging the new-made grave. The whole 
grouping was impressive. It was a representation of the Burial of 
Latane. Having once seen it, we felt sure that it would be in our 
memory forever." ^ 

Captain Latane was killed on Stuart's raid around McClellan's 
army, when in front of Richmond, in 1862. The enemy refusing to 
allow him Christian burial, the funeral services were performed by 
Mrs. Brockenborough, on whose place he fell. There were no males 
present except the negroes who dug the grave. 

Single Copy, sent by express, $4 

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Large discount to booksellers and dealers. Address 

W. H. CHASE, Publishing Agent, 

BOX 5780. NEW- YORK, 



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" In its mechanical department it is faultless." 

FROM THE ENGLISH PRESS. 

Trubner''s Literary Record, {London.) 
" In literary excellence, in gentlemanly tone and character, and in catholic 
sentiment, this paper is equal if not superior to any we have seen ; and we are 
sure, when it becomes known in England, it will meet with very cordial support. 
The numbers contain some deeply interesting papers on the ' Last Ninety Days 
of the War.' " 

Newcastle Pioneer, {England.) • 
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numbers of this excellent newspaper As a literary and religious 

newspaper, eschewing sectarian discussions and party politics, and aiming to 
supply Christians of all denominations with a weekly journal that may be 
heartily welcomed into any home circle. The Watchman deserves to succeed. 
Our only fear is that it will be found too good for that measure of success which 
is necessary to secure it a prolonged existence." 



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ceive his own copy gratis for one year ; this is putting two copies at 
half price. 

Club Rates. — Six copies for $20 ; ten copies for $30 ; and the 
person getting up clubs may afterward order any number of copies 
at the rate of $3 a copy for the year, and $1.50 for six months. 
Address 

W. H. CHASE, Publishing Agent, 

BOX 5780, NEW-TOItK. 

Local and General Agents wanted everywhere. The com- 
missions are liberal. Send for Circular. 



of arrangement, and in all the elements and features of the class of journals The 
Watchman belongs to, it is not at all Inferior to any paper of its sort published 
in New-York or elsewhere." 

Phrenological Journal. 
" This Is a live paper, written with the zeal of a Southerner and the kindlincM 
irf a Christian." 

Mempitis Christian Advocate. 
" This magnificent journal." 

Richmond Christian Advocate. 
" It is edited with much more than ordinary ability." 

Wilmington Journal. 
" A little of every thing which goes to make up a most excellent family news- 
paper. The editorials are cliaracterized by copiousness of language, fertility 
of ideas, and strong political common-sense." 

AsJieville News. 
" Its matter is more varied than the best magazines, and it contains during the 
month more matter than ' Godey,' ' Harper,' or 'Leslie.' For its size and con- 
tents, itris far cheaper than any magazine, and more valuable." 

New- Orleans ChiisUan Advocate. 
" Beautiful sheet. After looking at papers for many years, we pronounce the 
typography of tliis perfect. Its eight pages indicate throughout the Editor's 
marvelous industry and genius." 

Western Sentinel. 
" One of the leviathans of journalism, a magnificent quarto, containing forty- 
eight columns of choice matter weekly. It is a model of typographical excellence 
and beauty ; and, as far as its editorial management is concerned, we do not 
think there is a journal in our entire country that is conducted with more distin- 
guished ability." 

Eufala News. 
" A large and splendid weekly journal of literature, politics, religion, and 
news." 

Raleigh (N. C.) Sentinel, {Political.) 

"Ill all respects it exceeds our highest expectations. The typographical 
execution is superb, the editorial department a))le, the original contributions and 
the selections of the first order, and the whole tone of the paper elevated and 
Christian." 

Nashville Christian Advocate. 

" That ably edited and beautiful sheet, Thk Watchman." 

Lynchlmrgh Virginian. 
" It makes a splendid appearance, and the literary merit is in keeping wltJi 
th2 mechanical." 



The Watchman 



iN AMERICAN FAMILY JOURNAL OF 



Literature, Politics, Relipn, anfl News. 

Edited by JEtev. Dr. BE EMS, of North- Carolina. 



It is a large quarto of Eight Pages, with six 
columns to the page, elegantly printed on heavy white paper. 



WHAT OTHER JOURNALS SAY 

OF "THE WATCHMAN.'' 

Central Presbyterian. 
" If equaled, it certainly is not excelled by any journal in the country." 

Christian Times, iJEpiscopai.) 
" A large and handsome eight-page sheet. The energy and ability displayed 
In its columns can not fail to recommend it to a wide circle of readers." 

Christian Intelligencer, {Dutch Reformed.) 
" The first number of the paper presents a very attractive typographical ap- 
pearance, and its contents furnish abundant evidence of the Editor's qualifications 
for his task. It has our most hearty wishes for its usefulness and success." 

Pittsburgh Christian Advocate, {Nwthern Methodist.) 
"It is a large, finely-printed quarto, well cond|i^ted, and of generous tone." 

ParTcersburgh Democrcf^ jO 
" This unrivaled weekly." O 

North- Carolina Presbyterian. ■ '<• 

" Large and beautiful. , It will give no uncertain sound on thie reljgioua ques- 
tions of the day." 

Charleston Eecord. 

" It has eKceeded our expectations, which, grounded on the reputation of the 

Editor, were exceedingly high. Tur: Watchman takes an honoi-able place among 

the many journals publislied in New-York. In beauty of aiJf>earance, in the 

quality of its selections, in the ability manifested in its editorials, in neatness 



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